


Trial by Ordeal

by ToBeorNotto_Ohforgetit



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: ...and the not so fun stuff as well, Character studies, Child Abuse, Drowning, Gen, M/M, Other, Racing, Surfing, all that fun stuff, character history, implied klance, kinda sorta, skate boarding, this is mainly just an exercise in examining the characters through their past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-29
Updated: 2016-10-29
Packaged: 2018-08-27 18:34:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 89,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8412088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToBeorNotto_Ohforgetit/pseuds/ToBeorNotto_Ohforgetit
Summary: They're supposed to be two sides of the same coin, or something like that. The truth is a bit more complicated. (Character study of Keith and Lance)





	1. Trial By Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Content Warnings: Strong Language, Violence, Child Abuse (both physical and emotional, both vague and descriptive), Racial slurs, Gun Violence (implied), Homophobia (abuse due to homophobia), homophobic language, self-destructive thoughts/actions. 
> 
> Please do not take these tags lightly! Child abuse specifically is a theme throughout this chapter. If you would like clarification for any of these warnings, you are free to message me.
> 
> This story is a character study for both Keith and Lance. Some general info: Keith's side of the story is set in Quebec, Canada. I am pretty unaware of what Quebec is like, so this probably isn't an accurate representation. I apologize to Canadians. I also know that those in Quebec speak French, but I do not know how much is French vs. how much is English. This story is in English for obvious reasons, but the implication is that the characters in the story are most likely bilingual, and switch between languages, or speak primarily in their native language. I also view Voltron as being set in some alternate future. Here is envisioned it about 50-70 years in the future. 
> 
> Keith is Korean/Canadian in this story. I cannot pretend to speak for those who are Korean or biracial. If there is anything insensitive or incorrect, please feel free to notify me. 
> 
> Enjoy!

 

 

“You’re a burnout, kid,” is what they tell him.

 

Most of Keith’s memories of his mother are blurry, far away, only leaving behind impressions of the family and life he’d once had. There are general things, such as the feeling of happiness, eating waffles on Sunday mornings, or having his mother read to him at night. But he didn’t particularly remember why he was happy, or what conversations were had on those mornings, and he certainly couldn’t tell you a single line from those books.

However, there were a few memories that were rare in how vivid and clear they stood in his mind’s eye. The moments he remembers never seemed to be particularly interesting or important. But they stuck with him nonetheless.

In those moments he could recall exactly how his mother had looked when she smiled, the color of her hair, the shine in her eyes, the lines around her mouth. It felt almost as good as a picture.

(Except it wasn’t.)

He never knew his dad, didn’t even really know his name, much less what happened to him. But his mother always talked about him, how Keith reminded her of him, how much she had loved him.

He remembers coming home from school one day, angry, and saying, “I hate my eyes.”

His mother, her silky dark hair pulled back into a bun, had tilted her head slightly. “Oh, why is that?”

“They’re weird,” Keith had huffed.

“Why do you think that?” She asked.

“The kids at school make fun of me for them, they say they’re not normal because they’re a weird color.” Keith was pouting.

His mother’s own eyes were dark, almost reflective. While his were an odd dark blue that often looked violet.

She smiled. “Well I happen to like your eyes.”

Keith still pouted, but looked up at his mother a bit more. “Why aren’t they like yours though?”

“Because you take after your father,” she had said simply.

And Keith can’t remember the conversation after that, doesn’t know if that had calmed him, or just caused him to ask more questions. But he hasn’t forgotten that small detail.

It certainly hadn’t been their only conversation that eventually landed on the topic of his absent father. At the time, Keith hadn’t felt bitterness towards the man, but simple curiosity. His mother had always talked about him with such adoration, how could he think anything but the world of the man he’d never met?

But he can’t remember most of those conversations. They’re all so vague and muted.

Except for the night he first saw the dagger.

“Wha’s that?” Keith had asked as he saw his mother set something that glinted in the light back on her dresser.

She looked up in surprise. “Keith? I didn’t see you there.” She looked towards the dresser, where Keith’s gaze still lingered. “Oh, this?” she picked up the item again, and Keith could make out that it was a knife, double edged, with cloth wrapped around the end hilt.

“Yeah, what is it?” Keith asked, craning his neck a bit to get a better look at it.

“It’s a dagger,” his mother said, holding it down a bit closer for him to see.

When Keith reached out to touch it, however it was quickly pulled away.

“And it’s very dangerous,” his mother warned, eyes serious. “So no touching until you’re older, understand?”

Keith hadn’t, but he nodded anyway. “Why do you have it?” he asked.

His mother seemed to pause, glancing back towards her room. But then her smile returned as she gaze turned back to him. Only it seemed a bit different somehow. Tired almost.

“Tell you what, why don’t you go get ready for bed, and then I’ll tell you all about it, okay?”

Keith agreed quickly and scrambled to get through his nightly routine and into bed as fast as possible.

His mother followed him in and sat beside him, the dagger laid carefully in her lap as she began, saying, “This used to belong to your father, he would carry it with him everywhere he went when we first met.”

Keith looked down at the small dagger, eyes wide. His mother talked about his father a lot, but to see something of his right in front of him suddenly made the man seem so much more real.

“That is,” his mother said with a conspiratory smile, “until I stole it from him.”

Keith gasped. “Really?”

“Wrestled it from him actually,” she said, nodding.

“No way!” Keith insisted, but his smile was wide and excited.

“Yes way!” his mother retorted good-naturedly. “I used to be a fighter pilot after all. Fighting’s a part of the job! And I was very good at my job,” she said, eyes glinting.

Keith’s eyes were as wide as saucers. “You were a fighter pilot,” he whispered in awe.

His mother seemed surprised. “I-yes.” Then she laughed. “I never realized that I hadn’t told you. I was a graduate from the Galaxy Garrison back in my day. A top tier fighter pilot. Ended up in the Air Force, doing more of the fighting than the space piloting, but it was good work.”

Keith stared on in wonder.

Her smile softened somewhat as her attention was drawn back to the dagger. “That’s actually how your father and I met.”

“He was a fighter pilot too?” Keith asked excitedly.

“Not quite,” his mother replied. “Let’s just say that we met while I was on a mission. I impressed him. He liked the fighter in me I guess.”

She looked away again, gaze distant as she murmured, “We had an agreement. If I could get the dagger from him, I won. So I did.” She seemed to shake herself, and turned her attention back towards her son. “And so he gave it to me. And eventually, when you’re old enough, it’ll be yours.”

Keith stared down at the simple, yet elegant weapon. “Mine?”

His mother leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Of course, sweetheart.” But as she pulled away, she tacked on, “Just not for a very long time.”

Keith doesn’t remember a lot of things.

But he’s never forgotten that conversation.

And he’s never forgotten that knife.

It was one of those memories that, despite seeming so simple, had become central to his very identity.

And it seems odd, the things that did and didn’t seem to matter in the long run.

He doesn’t remember how he lost his first tooth, or his first friend, or his first pet gerbil (had it even been a gerbil? It might have been a lizard.). And honestly, he doesn’t even remember the first time he had ridden on his mother’s hover cycle.

But he _does_ remember the first time they had stood at the edge of a sloping canyon, the stars out and the wind biting in the Canadian Spring, and his mother had let him sit at the front of the craft.

“Would you like to learn?” His mother had asked.

They were going for a ride, something that Keith remembers enjoying to a degree, but usually he just clung to his mother’s back, only occasionally lifting his head to see the scenery passing before his eyes.

Except now she was offering to _teach_ him how to fly.

Keith had been excited and nodded quickly, yet he approached the hovercraft with slight apprehension.

“No need to be scared,” his mother said, as she helped him on the craft, seating him in front of her for the first time. “I’ll be right here.”

Keith took hold of the handlebars, his mother’s hands covering his own as she explained the basics of how to steer.

And then, suddenly, wind was rushing in their face, and the stars and canyon were whipping past them at light speed, and it felt like Keith’s whole world had just opened up. He had giggled like mad as he and his mother flew into the canyon, avoiding rocks and pillars alike. It felt like he could touch the stars; hold the universe in his hands.

It seemed like they had flown for hours and for no time at all when they had finally landed, Keith whooping and hollering with joy as he jumped off the cycle. His mother had laughed.

“Did you have fun?” she asked.

“Yes!” Keith had said, and darted forward, grabbing his mother’s hand. “Can you teach me how to fly? How to really _really_ fly, like you can? Please?”

His mother knelt down so that they could see eye to eye, and cupped his face gently with her gloved fingers. “Of course, Keith. I’d love to teach you. Flying’s in your blood after all.”

There had been plenty of moments leading up to that one, and there had been plenty after. But if Keith had been asked to pinpoint the moment he knew he was destined to fly- that would be it.

It is, after all, in his blood.

There had been many other great moments with his mother, when she had been teaching him how to fly and care for a craft. But he could never remember them as clearly as the first.

In the end, he didn’t get many lessons.

When he was six years old, he and his mother had been driving back from somewhere. Keith didn’t even fully remember what had happened and how. He just remembered the impact of the crash, the blood running down his temple, waking up in the hospital blearily to hear, “He shouldn’t be alive, I honestly don’t know how he is,” and finally coming to in a foreign room, with white walls and loud people, only to find out that he was an orphan.

He doesn’t think he really understood when they first told him. He kept asking for his mother, demanding to see her. No one really knew how to explain death to a six year old. When they told him his mother was gone, that no, she wasn’t coming back, that she had loved him very much, he kept insisting that they were wrong. His mother was teaching him how to fly. She had been teaching him how to cook. She had been teaching him Korean. And how was he supposed to finish learning those things if she was gone? So she couldn’t be gone, because she had to teach him.

Keith doesn’t remember much of the conversation, but he knows that the longer it went on, the longer he was denied access to his mother, the more they insisted that she was gone, the more hysterical he had grown. He thinks he remembers fighting the nurses, and the I.V. breaking off in his skin and having to get a new one. He thinks, but he’s not sure.

It had been a blur of hysteria and grief.

(Keith eventually learns how to fly, and he manages to learn a thing or two about cooking.)

(He never does learn more than the few sparse phrases of Korean that his mother taught him.)

It probably wasn’t until the funeral that Keith actually _understood_ that his mother was gone.

Seeing her lying in a casket, still and lifeless had set him off all over again.

He ended up being forcefully restrained and escorted from the service because he kept screaming and trying to run to his mother’s casket so that he could take her hand and demand she wake up and come back, because she had to teach him, she had promised.

Looking back, he can’t imagine what it must have been like for the congregation, sitting there in horror as a sobbing six year old begged their mother not to leave them.

He’s not surprised he was pulled away. But he’s still angry about it. Angry that he was denied the chance to see his mother’s face one last time before they closed the coffin and lowered her into a hole.

To this day, Keith has only ever seen her grave once.

It wasn’t even a day after the funeral when they brought him back to his house, and instructed him to pack what few things he wanted to keep. He was allowed two bags.

They had most likely wanted him to pack clothes and a few photos. Instead he packs only two sets of clothes and a pair of pajamas, a single picture of him and his mother at the Levis boardwalk, his tooth brush, and several books that his mother had read to him. He grabs a pillow off of his bed before he moves on to his mother’s room.

His handlers aren’t paying much attention to him, chatting in his living room.

Keith, inexplicably, hates them.

He grabs his mother’s old, red, jacket from the bottom dresser drawer; a relic from her days as a fighter pilot, she had told him. He had only seen it a few times, as his mother used to call it one of her prized possessions and rarely took it out. He doesn’t know what would happen to everything that remained in the house after he was gone, who might take it.

But they wouldn’t get this. It meant- had meant- too much to his mom. It meant too much to _him_.

The last thing he grabs is his father’s dagger.

It takes some maneuvering, he has pull out the drawers in order to climb up on top of the dresser, and find the small corner where his mother had always placed the knife. He manages to grab it moments before the dresser begins falling. Keith jumps off, and rolls out of the way just before it slams down, and the sound of glass shattering and wood breaking fills the house.

“What the hell?!” One of his handlers yell and both scurry into the room.

And they see Keith, standing there, with a shattered dresser behind him, a dagger in hand.

They try to take it from him. Of course they do.

But Keith screams, and cries, and wraps himself around one of the pillars of the house and stubbornly refuses to let go.

He won’t leave. Not without what little he can take of his mother and father with him.

They do everything they can to pull him away, but Keith refuses to move, refuses to stop screaming.

They try to convince him that the knife is dangerous, that he’s too young.

Finally, one of them snaps, “Oh for fuck’s sake, Frank, just give him the fucking knife.”

“But-”

“Who cares? The Taylors can deal with it when they get him. Just _give it to him_.”

Keith quiets somewhat when they give him the knife. He carefully slips it into his bag, but remains seated on the floor next to the wrecked dresser.

This is his home. He doesn’t want to leave it.

He isn’t given a choice, as the handlers pick him up, grab his pillow and two bags, and force him into the car.

He doesn’t have any family, they had told him.

His mother didn’t have any siblings, and his grandfather had passed away when he was too young to remember. No one knew who his dad was, much less where he or any other relatives might be.

(And for the first time, he begins to resent his father a bit. He needed him; his mother needed him. So where was he?)

So he’s placed in foster care.

The Taylors, the first family he stays with, are kind. Busy, clearly, with the ten other children in the house, but they manage to make time for him. He doesn’t stay there long however.

He’s moved to a new home a month later.

It feels like a fresh betrayal.

(He learns later that the Taylors are a transition house. They are there to deal with children’s grief, to try and allow them an adjustment period. It was never going to be permanent. The knowledge doesn’t stop the hurt however.)

He ends up leaving the pillow there.

After that, Keith has trouble keeping track of how many times he is bounced around from foster home to foster home. Some of the homes are kinder than others, while some are far more apathetic or uptight.

Most didn’t intend to be cruel. It was often just a case of uncaring fosters allowing harm to go on unnoticed. Occasionally, it came from parents who were a bit too strict. One pair is particularly memorable for making their foster kids do pushups as punishment.

The only consolation is that few last very long. Some will only last a couple of weeks, but no home ever seemed to last more than five months. Keith struggled to remind himself not to get attached.

It isn’t until he’s after he’s turned seven, going on eight, and with a nice family called the Tyrons, that he finally gets to visit his mother’s grave. He’s older, better able to understand the meaning of death, and the Tyrons are kind enough to take him back to Keith’s little town outside of Quebec City.

He stands in front of his mother’s grave and apologizes for being late, tells her some of what has happened, let’s her know that he still has her jacket and his father’s knife, that he’s kept them safe for her. He tells her grave that one day he’ll follow in her footsteps and join the Galaxy Garrison. After all, there is no one left to teach him how to fly.

He tells her he’s sorry.

He tells her that he forgives her for leaving him.

Keith stands in front of his mother’s grave and admits that he’s scared. That he misses her.

The Tryons are kind enough to give him the space he needs as he pours his heart out to a tombstone. Afterwards they take him to get ice cream.

He stays with them for four months.

After that he is bounced between two more homes, neither quite as nice, but caring enough, before he lands in a foster home at eight years old, that is meant to be more permanent.

By this point, he no longer has his pillow, the clothes he had packed, and most of the books. But he has kept his mother’s jacket, the picture from the boardwalk, and his father’s dagger when he arrives at the Bailey’s.

He ends up staying there for nearly two years.

He doesn’t get lucky.

Greg Bailey, the foster father, was said to run a home for ‘difficult’ children. Not problem children, mind you, Keith had never been labelled as such. Just…difficult. Quiet. Antisocial. Homes like these were supposed to be for those who weren’t adjusting well to foster life.

Most of the time the system ensured that guardians behaved appropriately, with regular checks in place.

But some homes, like any, were bound to fall through the cracks.

Keith doesn’t get lucky.

He learns quickly that Greg is irritable at best, always muttering under his breath, and going off on just about anything. He particularly seems to hate teenagers. Why he would then choose to foster four teens then, Keith wasn’t sure.

And he learns, in the second night, that Greg is a drunk.

A _violent_ drunk.

The man has a hair trigger to begin with, but the second any decent amount of alcohol was in him, things got _dangerous_.

Keith remembers when Alicia, the oldest at fifteen, had ventured out after seven that second night to get a glass of water when he heard yelling from the living room. He had almost run out to see what was happening, but was stopped by Ron. The fourteen year old had just shook his head and told him to stay.

He remembers hearing Alicia cry out in pain, a crash, and the sound of a glass breaking. There was shouting.

Keith had curled up in the corner of his bed, trying not to cry.

He doesn’t remember if he was successful.

He remembers asking why they didn’t do anything to stop it. Why they didn’t report it. They had just looked at him sadly, explained that they had tried once, and that nothing had ever been done. It had only served to make Greg furious with them.

So Keith spends the entire first three months terrified, jumping at every sound, standing ram rod straight any time Greg was in the same room as him, and staying in their shared bedroom as much as possible whenever their foster father was home.

For the most part the older kids did what they could to protect the younger. There had been seven of them total. Greg didn’t typically seem to have a particular target. Assuming that no one had particularly sparked his ire that day, it was usually just whoever was unlucky that got caught up in the aftermath.

The bruises his foster siblings sported often weren’t obvious. Greg was rather underhanded for a drunk, and usually avoided the face when throwing punches or kicks. But a quick look under Alicia or Ron’s shirt showed bruises that hadn’t fully healed from the time before, overlaid by fresher, darker marks, all over their shoulders, back, and abdomen.

It was terrifying.

There had been a time when Keller, Keith’s thirteen year old foster brother, had instructed Keith to hide under the table during an altercation. Keith had watched, petrified as Greg repeatedly kicked the older boy.

Keith had been nearly inconsolable for a week after that.

But it wasn’t until three months in that his ‘luck’ ran out. He had been standing by a lamp when Greg slammed something down on the table behind him. When Keith jumped, startled by the sound, he knocked into it, sending the lamp shattering onto the floor.

Greg had been furious.

Strangely enough, Keith was relatively certain the man hadn’t even been drunk at that point. Most likely he was just that angry.

It hadn’t mattered that Keith had apologized desperately, had begged profusely, or had sobbed in terror. Greg bent him over the side of the couch, and swatted him hard with a metal spatula.

Keith had never been so much as spanked before that. And as much as the brutal punishment had hurt, the humiliation was almost worse. Whenever Greg deemed him misbehaving after that he would always wave that same stupid spatula in his face, and Keith’s ears would burn with shame.

But as awful as it had been, the experience doesn’t make Keith more subdued, or skittish. Instead, it simply makes him angry.

And he stews, silently, for months afterwards. It isn’t until after he turns nine years old, and his younger foster sister, Kara, had accidently caused the cans in the cupboard to come tumbling down, that it comes to a head.

Keith still, to this day, doesn’t know what possessed him. But he saw Greg advance on Kara, and his vision went red. It felt like his blood was boiling underneath his skin. Before his foster father could so much as lay a hand on Kara, Keith grabbed an empty beer bottle and chucked it at the man’s back.

The sound of the bottle shattering as it crashed to the floor still rung in his ears to this day. The entire room went dead silent for a single beat.

And then Greg had rounded on him with a terrifying roar, lunging towards him, and sending Keith crashing to the floor.

Keith walks away with a bloody cut along his arm from the broken glass, and bruises around his neck and ribs.

It was terrifying, and it had hurt, but for the first time, Keith, ironically enough, hadn’t felt helpless.

It seemed like life had always taken and taken, and he couldn’t do anything except watch.

It felt good to fight back, if even in the smallest of ways.

His foster siblings had been horrified, and did their best to make sure none of his wounds worsened. He was lucky the cut on his arm didn’t need stitches, they said. They told him he was brave, but reckless, that it wasn’t his fault, but that he shouldn’t do something like that again. Keith had just nodded numbly along, taking none of it to heart.

To be fair, Keith doesn’t seek out Greg’s wrath after that, and is smart enough to know when to keep his head down. But he has also already painted a target on his back. Greg wasn’t just going to forget his stunt with the bottle. So he holds his tongue less. He lets his anger seep through in his tone, he mutters under his breath, and occasionally even yells at the man. If he is going to be hit anyway then he’d rather fight and spit when he could.

So it gets worse after that.

Greg was already looking for an excuse to give Keith another lesson just as much as the older kids, and Keith would often draw his attention away from some of his other foster siblings, particularly the younger ones. It leads to some difficulties for him, but at least he could protect what little family he had.

It had felt good at first. Fighting back. But after the first few months, and becoming privy to the man’s drunken ‘episodes’, Keith was beginning to feel tired. Fighting was changing nothing. And Greg’s blows hurt.

He still yells, snarks, and protects his foster siblings as well as he was able. He is still angry. But after a while that anger feels pointless. Directionless.

Hopeless.

He has been kicked more times than he could count, has ‘sprained’ his wrists or ankles on multiple occasions, his bruises often looked like a fucked up art piece. Occasionally those bruises and welts were caused by that same damned spatula, or Greg’s belt from where they’d warmed themselves on his skin. And those don’t account for the few scars that still marked his body, from the cuts and scrapes that Greg left when he was being particularly careless, or the burns left by cigarette butts or matches in the creases of his skin and the back of his neck.

It wore away at him.

Keith learns, around the third time Greg comes to blows with him, that the man sometimes lock them away for a night. He is shoved in a cupboard one time, and locked in there until morning. Another, particularly memorable, time the man bodily drags him out into the cold night and handcuffs him to a radiator. Keith still has the scars around his wrist from where the metal had bit into his skin from trying so hard to free himself.

It’s more psychological than anything, but it is hell.

And with each bruise, or burn, or cut, or dark, terrifying night spent locked away somewhere, Keith feels his original anger fold and crumple in on itself, like a black hole forming inside his chest.

That is when Ron and Alicia came to him one day.

“You’re an idiot, kid,” Ron says with his arms crossed. “You’re going to get yourself killed if you don’t learn how to pick your fights.”

Keith sits on the bed, a fresh bandage over a bruise on his cheek. He doesn’t reply.

The older boy sighs. “But- If you’ve got to pick this one then we might as well give you what we can.”

When Keith looks back up at them, something like hope curling around his dwindling resolve, there is a glint in his foster siblings’ eyes.

They teach him how to fight back.

Well, kind of.

They can’t do much. Trying to really and truly land a punch on Greg could end badly for them. They are smart enough to acknowledge that the man holds all the power in this situation. The last thing they need is for Greg to give a ‘self-defense’ excuse.

Not that any court would ever see _their_ case.

But they teach him how to throw a punch, if not to use on Greg, then to make sure he knows what is coming if he got into a fight elsewhere. However they also teach him how someone might move, how to predict the next action, and most importantly, how to minimize damage.

Keith is quick and small. He can’t take a lot of hits, but he can dart out of the way, or move to lessen the impact.

It’s weeks of ‘training’ with Ron and Alicia in the back yard when Greg is gone or out like a light, with Keller, Kara, Tessa, and Irwin watching on (the latter two, being his eleven year old foster sister and six year old foster brother).

Eventually it stops truly being training, and is just an excuse for them to get out of the house, have some fun, and try, for just an hour or so, to pretend like they have something normal.

The black hole never comes.

Because the anger is still there, in full force, but this time, it’s wrapped around something important. Hope. Family. It was there to protect, not to sustain.

It’s the worst situation Keith can imagine for himself. But it’s also the first time he’s felt purpose since his mother died.

But all good things come to an end.

And theirs ends when Irwin’s head strikes a table, and Greg refuses to let them take him to a hospital.

It ends with a gun in Ron’s hands and Greg on the ground, holding his bleeding leg.

“What the fuck, Ron?!” Alicia yells at him.

“You shot him!” Keller says, eyes wide and terrified.

“Why _the fuck_ do you have a _gun_?” Tessa screams.

Keith’s head spun as he tries to understand what is happening, what he’s seeing. There is so much blood, so much blood, so much, so much, so much.

Some of it was Irwin’s and some of it was theirs and some of it, a lot of it, was Greg’s, and Greg is on the ground screaming and cursing and clutching the wound and Keith doesn’t know what’s happening but he feels like he’s going to be sick.

How had he let this happen? They were supposed to protect the younger kids, so how did he let Irwin get hurt?

How did Ron have a gun?

 _Why_ did Ron have a gun?

Ron shot Greg.

Ron _shot_ Greg, _Ron shot Greg_ , RonshotGreg, RonshotGregRon _shotGregRonshotGregRonsho_ t-

“What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fucking fuck?!” Tessa is still repeating, practically hysterical.

“Tessa,” Alicia breaks in firmly, “shut the hell up and pull it together!”

Tessa looks like she might be hyperventilating. Alicia grabs her by the shoulders and shakes her slightly.

“Tess, listen to me! I need you to call 911. Tell them we need an ambulance for a gunshot wound victim here, and that we’re on our way with another. Can you do that?” Alicia demands.

Tessa stares at her for a moment but nods, breathing still irregular. “Call an ambulance, tell them- yeah, yeah I can. I can do that. I can-” she breaks off as she moves away from Alicia and towards the phone, still mumbling to herself.

Keith is sitting next to Irwin on the floor, alongside Kara and Keller, the latter of which is currently pressing a dish rag to the back of Irwin’s head, trying to stop the bleeding. They all watch wide eyed and terrified as Alicia tries to approach Ron.

Ron is still standing there, gun pointed towards Greg, shaking. There is some awful sound coming from him that made Keith want to curl up somewhere safe.

“Ron,” Alicia says, extending a hand, “I need you to give me the gun, okay?”

Ron doesn’t move. Barely blinks.

“ _Ron_ ,” she says again, more forceful this time, “we’re fine. We’re going to be fine. We can fix all of this, I promise, but I need you to put the gun down before you do anything stupid okay?”

When Ron finally turns to her slightly, he was so pale that Keith thought he might pass out.

“He-he,” Ron stutters, voice weak.

“I know,” Alicia says softly, “but we’re going to be okay. Please give me the gun?”

She let her hand cover Ron’s slowly. Ron nods dumbly as she slowly pulls the glock out of his hands and sets it down on the table.

“We’re going to fix this,” Alicia says firmly. “Okay?”

Ron just nods again and sinks down into a chair, his face in his hands.

It looks like he’s crying.

“Okay,” Alicia takes a deep breath and then turned to the rest of them. “Keller, Keith, Kara, come with me. We’re driving Irwin to the hospital. We can get there faster than the ambulance can get here. Tessa-” She turns to the younger girl who had set the phone down after calling 911. “Stay here with Ron. I need you to be able to explain what happened, do you understand?”

“Yeah,” Tessa says shakily, but more in control than before. “Yeah, I can do that.”

“Good. Both you and Ron wait on the front porch, okay?”

Tessa nods.

Alicia wastes no time in picking up Irwin and carrying him to the car. Keller and Keith sit in the back and cradle him, keeping pressure on his head wound, while Kara sits in the front.

Keith remembers meeting Alicia’s eyes in the rear view mirror. She looked scared. As scared as he felt.

That somehow makes it that much worse.

He doesn’t remember much of them rushing into the hospital or what they had to say, but he remembers the waiting that they had to do after. It was unbearable.

“Will they let us stay together?” Kara asks out of the blue from where she was cradled in Alicia’s lap.

“Hmm?” Alicia replies, brows furrowed.

“They won’t split us up, will they?” Kara presses, and she sounds terrified.

Understanding seems to dawn on Alicia, and she doesn’t reply, just wraps her arms more firmly around Kara sets her chin on the young girl’s head.

Keller looks down at his shoes, hands gripping the plastic arms of the chair tight.

Keith just watches them, and feels the bit of hope that his anger had been protecting dwindle.

They don’t get to stay together, in the end.

The social workers express their deepest regrets, apologizing profusely for allowing someone like Greg to continue hurting them. They promise they’ll do everything they can to make it right.

They can’t make it right. They know that. Keith knows that. All they have are apologies.

They apologize for letting it happen.

They apologize for not being able to keep them all together, because ‘you must understand, there simply isn’t anyone who can take six children’, to which Keith spits back, no, he doesn’t understand _shit_.

They apologize because it is six, and not seven, because Ron will be serving at least three months in juvie, with three months community service. Keith says that’s bullshit because Ron was defending them. They say it’s unclear if it was defense or reactionary. They say usually, with cases like this, the foster child is worse off. They say it’s lucky, because the jury has sympathy for Ron due to what Greg put them all through.

That only serves to make Keith angrier.

The only consolations in all of this is that they will all walk away (they had gotten Irwin to the hospital in time), and Greg was being put away on multiple accounts of child abuse.

It’s a shitty consolation.

And just like that, Keith has lost another family.

So at ten years old, Keith takes his single picture, worn red jacket, and dagger and is dropped into another foster family.

In hindsight he assumes that they had most likely believed they were making up for allowing him to fall through the cracks before. The Albines are an older couple who had already fostered several children earlier in life. All of which had grown up and left home by that point. (And looking back, Keith perhaps should have seen something was amiss when none of these former foster children ever came to visit. Even on holidays.)

It was a married couple taking care of one kid. It was practically a foster kid’s dream. As close as you could get to being adopted in the system.

Except Yelma and Rick Albine are no dream.

It wasn’t nearly as clear as it had been with Greg. There is no shouting, manhandling, rough words, and certainly no physical violence. To begin with Keith believes that they are simply a bit uptight.

But within the first two weeks of living with them, Keith finds them to be _suffocating_.

The Albines went _far_ beyond strict and straight into controlling, saying that their many rules were paramount to children’s ‘health.’

It seemed trivial at first, but what originally looks like small waves turns out to have a massive undertow.

It starts with, ‘no shoes in the house’, and ‘children are not allowed in the main living room, something could be broken’, and eventually lands on ‘children are not entitled to privacy.’ And they take that last rule quite seriously.

Keith is not allowed _any_ electronics, any form of communication with friends from school, his past foster families, nothing. He is allowed an hour every day on the computer, but only so long as Rick is in the computer room with him, looking over his shoulder, and ensuring he only uses it for school work. They demand that they be told if he plans to do anything with friends at least a week in advance, and that any and all clubs or extracurricular activities he joins must be approved by them.

It doesn’t help that Yelma and Rick are not exactly the nurturing type. They don’t prefer to hold conversations unless it’s about school or housework, and he is often dismissed or frozen out of discussions, chided when he tries to speak up. He learns not to speak unless he has something ‘worth’ saying.

The hurt leaves a yawning ache in Keith’s chest.

It’s isolating.

The home began to feel like a prison. He isn’t allowed out of his room past 8 p.m. for anything except to use the bathroom, he isn’t allowed to sleep past seven o’clock on weekend mornings, and he is only allowed to leave the house without them when he is going to school.

Keith isn’t given a modicum of breathing room. School is the only place where he _isn’t_ monitored 24/7, but even that isn’t much of a relief. He isn’t even allowed to decide his own past time, with Rick insisting that school work came before anything else, and that technology rotted the brain. The only thing in his room are books that have been pre-approved by his foster parents and an old deck of cards. And any time outside the room isn’t much better, given that he can’t enter the living room or even the kitchen without the Albines eyes on him. Even the _bathroom_ can only lock from the outside.

Which, Keith learned, actually did serve a purpose in the house.

The Albines as it turn out, don’t believe in spanking children or pushups for punishment. Instead they believe in rigorous cleaning. And given how often Yelma insists that he had broken some kind of rule (‘no snacks after 2 p.m.’, ‘no bare feet on the couch’, ‘no raising your voice inside’) that Keith isn’t even sure _existed_ moments before, he spends a lot of time cleaning.

On one particular occasion, after refusing to eat a meal because Yelma would not listen to him when he explained that he is lactose intolerant, Keith was set down in the bathroom and given a bucket of soapy water and a toothbrush. He was told to scrub every tile in the room, and then was promptly locked in there for the next four hours.

It had been awful.

And it only seemed to become more unbearable as time went on.

Keith chaffes under their thumb, as their stifling control presses down around him.

It inevitably leads to a blow up.

They are at the table one day, and Keith tries to interject into a conversation. He is, of course, ignored.

It feels like a boiling point, and Keith lashes out, screaming at them to please just _listen_ to him.

The Albines simply watch him with cold disappointment, and tell him calmly that he is not allowed to raise his voice. That only serves to make Keith angrier and _louder_.

In the end he is sent up to his room with no dinner. Keith wonders angrily if they are perhaps living in a 1950s sitcom.

When Yelma comes up to his room to dole out his punishment he remains seated on his bed with his arms crossed.

“No,” he tells her. Because they aren’t Greg, and they won’t hit him, and he’s done with feeling like he’s being squeezed to death by invisible chains.

Yelma looks back at him blankly. “No?” she repeats, like she’s not sure she heard him correctly.

“No, I’m not cleaning your stupid chandelier, or your stupid bannister, or anything else!” Keith yells.

Yelma stares at him for a moment and leaves, only to come back with Rick, who is decidedly unhappy about Keith’s disobedience.

Rick attempts to bodily drag him to the living room and shoves the cleaning supplies into his hands. But Keith isn’t having any of it, and throws it down on the ground, sitting cross legged where he stood and refusing to move.

He doesn’t know why exactly, but he _wants_ to make them mad, get them angry. He wants anything except the cold detachment they had shown him thus far.

It doesn’t work.

Rick instead tells him that he will either accept his punishment or be grounded until he does so. Which, according to Rick, includes the removal of his bedroom door, the removal of the cards and books from his room, and no access to the computer. Keith sputters at that last one.

He points out that he needs to computer to complete a lot of his school work. That without it, he will almost certainly fail his assignments, and even the entire year if he does not turn in any take home assignments.

Rick just nods sagely and tells him that the choice is Keith’s.

Between being forced to possibly fail a year of school and taking his punishment, Keith begrudgingly picks up the feather duster.

It doesn’t get better after that. Keith continues to yell, to try and get a word in edgewise with his foster parents, but nothing ever comes of it.

Just more punishments, more silence.

So Keith decides to get a bit smarter about his defiance.

When the new school year starts (a few months before Keith turns eleven) students are finally introduced to sports. Keith has absolutely zero interest in any of it, but he signs up for a sport anyway (basketball, if he remembers correctly).

He is careful to do everything by the books. He asks the Albines’ permission first, let’s them speak with the coach, and promises to keep them updated. He waits for three weeks, until after their second game. The Albines show no interest in showing up.

He quits the team after a month, but is careful to make sure that his foster parents don’t find out. After that he finally has two hours to himself, four days a week, after school. He just has to be sure that he’s at the school, looking reasonably like he may have just gotten out of practice, for Rick to pick him up at the correct time.

He doesn’t really do anything with these two hours in particular. He usually just reads, walks around the surrounding neighborhood, or perhaps uses the library computer. Just anything really to shake off the suffocating feeling that comes with being monitored 24/7. It’s nice. He feels like he can breathe. Think.

It’s during this time that he meets Brent.

On one afternoon Keith finds an abandoned skateboard outside the library. Since he still has about an hour and half before he needs to be back, he figures he’ll give it a try.

He’s not great at it, but he’s not awful either. It’s the closest he’s been able to get to flying since his mother passed. It doesn’t compare to the memory on the hover cycle, but the wind is whipping through his hair and it feels just a bit like freedom. It’s enough.

That is, until someone slams their foot on the front of the board and sends him flailing and tumbling down.

“What the hell?!” Keith yells from the ground, hands a bit scraped up, but otherwise fine.

He’s looking up at a brown haired boy about his age who’s glaring down at him with his arms crossed.

“You stole my board,” the kid

And-oh.

Keith feels a bit of shame crawl up his throat, but tries to defend himself.

“It was just lying on the ground outside the library, I thought it was abandoned.”

The kid looks unimpressed.

Keith gives in and glances down at his shoes, cheeks red with embarrassment.

“Sorry,” he mumbles. “I just wanted to give it a try. I was gonna put it back anyway. It’s not like my-uhm- I wouldn’t have been able to bring it home.”

The kid stares at him for a good long time, before he finally offers down a hand with a huff.

“It’s okay, dude. I knew I should have left it somewhere better hidden. Kind of had it coming.”

Keith is surprised at the quick forgiveness, but allows the stranger to pull him up, offering a small thanks.

“I’m Brent,” the boy said, smiling slightly and holding out his hand.

“Keith.” And when Keith shakes his hand, he tries not to be embarrassed.

“So, Keith,” Brent starts, sticking his hands in his pockets and rocking back on his heels, “you ever skate before?”

Keith shakes his head. “No.”

Brent raises a brow. “Really?” he asks, seeming genuinely surprised. “You were doing pretty well for someone who’s never picked up a board.”

Keith shrugs.

Brent is still studying him. “If you’ve never skated before, why jack someone’s board?”

“I’ve just never really had the chance to try before,” Keith says, choosing the simplest answer. “I wanted to know what it was like.”

The other boy considers him for a moment. “You wanna learn?”

Keith’s taken aback. “I-what?”

“Do you,” the boy said slowly, pointing to Keith, then to the board between their feet, “want to learn how to skate?”

Keith’s eyes widen. “I- I mean, if you want to teach me? I could-”

“It’s a yes or no question, dude.”

Keith wants to say yes, he really, truly does. But instead he says, “I only have about an hour. I’m technically supposed to be at basketball practice.”

He’s surprised when Brent starts snickering in response. “Oh man, you too?” When he stops laughing and straights up, Brent explains, “I told my parents I joined the mathletes. I’m not even totally sure what a mathlete is! But it buys me a couple of hours.”

Keith is relieved.

“So?” Brent asks. “How about it? Want to learn how to skate?”

“Yeah, okay,” Keith says, and he smiles.

Brent doesn’t do much teaching that first hour they spend together. They mainly talk.

The brunette explains that his parents don’t really approve of some of his extracurriculars. So he makes excuses to spend time outside of the house after school so that they won’t get suspicious.

Keith admits that he is living with his foster parents and merely says that they’re strict.

To be entirely honest, Keith isn’t really sure what is and isn’t normal for typical parents. He doesn’t remember his own mother being anything like Rick and Yelma, and neither had the few decent foster homes he stayed at over the years. But it could be that those were outliers. That most parents were this strict, where this… overbearing.

So he just tells Brent that they’re strict and leaves it at that.

In an hour he’s back in front of the gym waiting to be picked up.

 

He and Brent become pretty good friends after that.

The week after their friendship starts Brent is waiting for him with two boards.

“Here,” the other boy says, “this way you have your own.”

Keith stares at him in disbelief.

“Don’t give me that look, man,” Brent says. “It was my brother’s old board. We were gonna sell it in a garage sale or somethin’ anyway. So I just fixed up the wheels a bit for you. It’s nothing like this baby,” he says, patting his own board, “but it’ll do in a pinch.”

Keith is overcome with gratitude, but stops short as he comes to a realization.

“Thank you,” he says, sincerely, “but I can’t remember? My foster parents won’t-”

“Yeah, dude, I remember,” Brent cuts him off, rolling his eyes. “No worries, ever since someone stole my board,” he gives Keith a knowing look as Keith mutters ‘borrowed’ under his breath, “I’ve come up with a pretty genius hiding spot for it on school grounds. We can just ditch it there when we’re done for the day, and it should still be there when we get back.”

Keith is genuinely ecstatic.

Around that second week, Brent asks him, “What’s up with you anyways, man?”

Keith tries not to panic a little. “What do you mean?”

“Whenever you’re riding, you always look like you’re a million miles away,” Brent elaborates.

Keith suddenly feels self-conscious. “I-It reminds me of flying,” he admits, ears burning.

Brent’s eyebrows shoot up at that. “Flying?”

Keith nods. “Yeah- my mom- back when she was alive- would take me out on the hover cycle. She was teaching me how to fly. This-reminds me a bit of that.”

He expects Brent to laugh.

He doesn’t.

Instead, Brent says, “Flying, huh? Well then.” His smile is wider than Keith’s ever seen it, and he’s not really sure what to make of it.

But Brent doesn’t bring it up again.

 

Things, inevitably, go wrong.

A month and a half into their friendship Brent isn’t waiting outside the library alone.

“Keith!” Brent calls, waving him over to where he and an older teen were leaning up against a beat up car.

Keith approaches both of them cautiously, uncertain about the newcomer.

“Keith, this is my brother, Bastion,” Brent says, and Keith immediately relaxes.

He had never met Brent’s brother before, but he had heard plenty about him. For all that Brent talked about how annoying he was, it was clear that he adored his older brother. Keith can’t exactly say whether that made Bastion a good brother exactly (considering the older boy’s vices often lead Brent to trouble as well), but it did make him trustworthy.

“We thought we’d mix things up a bit this time, head to the skate park. Hop in,” Brent tells him, opening the car door.

Keith balks. “Skate park?”

“Yeah,” Brent replies, used to Keith’s skittishness by this point. “You’ve gotten really good over the past few weeks. Just rolling around on flat cement isn’t really cutting it anymore, ya know? I figured we should go where the real fun is!”

Keith considered them carefully. “I have to be here when Rick picks me up.”

“No worries, kiddo.” It’s Bastion who speaks up this time, coming up to clap Brent on the back. “I’ll be sure to have both of you back before your foster rents can freak.”

Keith wasn’t so sure but… he hadn’t really had the chance to see anything besides the Albines house and the school since he arrived nearly six months ago. It would be nice to see something new…

“Okay, sure,” Keith says, smiling a bit, though still apprehensive.

“Sweet!” Brent says, and grabs his wrist dragging him into the car.

Keith is glad that the car casts shadows over his face, because his cheeks feel distinctly red when he finally sits down.

The drive to the skate park is relatively short, and Keith is amazed when they arrive. Looking back, the place probably wasn’t nearly as massive as it had felt to his eleven year old self, but it was something so completely new at the time. The massive ramps, the huge bowl with sloping sides, the slanted rails and steps. Keith felt like he had walked into Disney Land at the time.

It’s exhilarating. Brent was right, there is no comparison between just riding along the side walk and skating down a ramp. The wind rushes that much faster, the dips feel that much more like falling. If Keith had thought just skating around felt like flying, this was a hundred times closer to the real thing.

He spends the afternoon laughing in delight as he and Brent skate up and down the park, being taught new tricks by Bastion when the older occasionally deigned to move away from his cluster of friends.

It is so close to perfect, something just has to go wrong.

But Keith doesn’t realize it until he notices the sun dipping below the horizon.

When he glances up and sees the last rays of sunlight beginning to disappear he nearly falls off his board as reality hits him full force.

The sun is going down.

He has to be nearly an hour late at this point.

When he asks Brent for the time, the other boy panics as well, and they both run to grab Bastion.

Half a block from the school Keith asks to be let out of the car. He can still be able to salvage this, somehow. But if Rick sees him getting out of an older teen’s car, he’s screwed.

He is now an hour and five minutes late.

When he runs up to the front of the gym he sees Rick, leaning against the truck, red in the face.

Keith feels his breath catch in his throat.

The man looks positively _livid_.

It should be funny, this is what Keith had wanted for so long after all, right? Except Keith is looking at Rick right now and is reminded of Greg, and he’s _terrified_.

“Where the hell have you been?” The man asks coldly, marching towards him.

“I-I was just-”

“Not just today,” the man continues as he grabs Keith’s arm roughly, “but every damn day after school for the past three months!”

Keith flinches. “I was- practice- I-”

Rick slaps him. Rick slaps him and Keith feels his world tilt for a moment.

“Enough lying!” Rick hisses. “I’ve been waiting here for over an hour! I went in and talked to your ‘coach,’” the man spat. “According to her, you haven’t been on the team for over two months now! She had no idea where you were.”

Keith recoils from the man, trying valiantly to keep the tears welling up in his eyes from falling. It’s a losing battle.

“Nowhere,” he replies, voice small. “I wasn’t- I wasn’t going anywhere, I just-”

“I said stop lying!” Rick says, shaking him.

“The library!” Keith cries on instinct. “I’ve just been in the library!”

There’s a pause.

“The library,” the man says with a sneer, and lets go of Keith’s arm only to grab his chin and force the boy to look at him. “You really expect me to believe that you’ve been going to the _library_?”

“I have,” Keith whimpers. It isn’t the truth per say, but it isn’t a lie either. He can’t let Rick know about Brent though. “I-I use the computers there. Or read the books. I just-” he shudders. “I’m just _lonely_.” And it feels like he’s admitted too much.

Rick pulls back. His face is still red, and his eyes are dark.

“Get in the car,” he tells Keith shortly, and the boy scrambles to obey.

He shakes the entire way back to the Albines’ home.

Yelma is waiting for them in the living room, as blank faced as ever. Rick is still red all over, like a cherry tomato about to pop.

“No more extracurricular activities,” the man says as he comes to a stop by his wife.

Keith looks up at him, stricken, “But-”

“No,” Rick cuts him off, voice going steely again. “You’ve proven that you can’t be trusted with even that little bit of freedom, so no more. From now on its school and straight home.”

Keith looks away, defeated, and continues to try and stop his tears from falling.

But Rick isn’t done.

“There’s a price to pay for disobedience, Keith. If you didn’t want to be lonely then you should have done what everyone else your age does and actually joined a damn team,” the man says. “You have no one to blame for this but yourself.”

Keith grits his teeth at that, fists balling up in anger.

“You don’t get it!” he shoots back. He’s glad to have some kind of anger to focus in on. If he’s going down for this, he might as well go down swinging. “I feel like I can’t _breathe_ in this house! I can’t have a moment of privacy, a single decision it- it’s driving me crazy! I didn’t want to join a stupid club because I just wanted some time to myself to _think_.”

Rick actually seems to be effected by his outburst this time, his knuckles creaking dangerously. But it’s stone faced Yelma that replies.

“You’ll have plenty of time to think by yourself in your room.”

They take the deck of cards away, and he’s given more cleaning duty than he can really manage.

This time they pull him out into the backyard and tell him to pull out all of the weeds by hand. He isn’t given gloves. They lock the patio door behind them.

It’s a miserable few weeks.

He still gets to talk to Brent during school time, but it’s difficult now. They don’t have many classes together so they can really only spend time with one another in those few minutes before and after school and during lunch. It’s something, but it’s not nearly enough.

All of it, the control, the feeling of powerlessness, the hurt, leads to Keith lashing out whenever and wherever he could. At the Albines, at teachers, at students.

It leads to what his teachers call ‘discipline issues.’

There’s the time he shoves another student for making fun of the quiet girl in their class, the time he gets into a shouting match with a classmate who kept hurling insults at him, the time he yells at a teacher for getting frustrated with him, and of course, the very memorable time when he throws a basketball at his P.E. teacher from behind in a fit of anger.

Those aren’t his only offenses but they are the most memorable.

He ends up regularly getting detention.

Which should have seemed like a _bad_ thing. It certainly did to most of his teachers and classmates, and, more importantly, to the Albines.

But on the day of his first detention, make up still covering the bruise that had been left by Rick’s hand, he learns that it isn’t so bad.

He’s able to just pick out a book from one of the bookshelves and read during that time. It’s quiet, and the teacher, Mr.Calvin, actually lets him out thirty minutes before the detention is officially scheduled to end.

It still isn’t much, but it gives him extra time to hang out with Brent. It’s actually kind of nice.

The Albines’ punishments for the multitude of detentions weren’t much fun, but Keith would gladly bear them for just a bit more time away from that house.

He does have to be careful though. He can’t just be getting detention every single day, that would begin to look suspicious.

But two to three times a week he is kept after school, and most of the time he has thirty minutes more to hang out with Brent.

It gets difficult however. To keep it up. Eventually students begin avoiding him for the most part, and teachers seem to tire of him.

To be completely honest, Keith is beginning to feel tired as well. It feels like that same black hole that had threatened to form almost two years ago is close once again. There is nothing to sustain his anger. It’s been scattered in a million directions, and even he can’t go on forever.

Mr.Calvin seems to be the one who notices.

Calvin isn’t always given detention duty, but to Keith’s understanding he usually volunteers for it. He doesn’t understand why, but he’s grateful nonetheless. Mr.Calvin is the English teacher; he has laugh lines around his eyes and dark hair that’s graying around the temples. He seems to have more sympathy for Keith than anything.

Not that Keith really wants the man’s sympathy. But it’s better than the contempt shown by most other teachers.

When others are given detention duty Keith is often asked to do homework instead of read, or, in one particular case, to write lines from a board (which hadn’t been torturous, just, you know, annoying). And they rarely let him out early.

But Calvin is content to allow him to read and occasionally even strike up a small conversation with Keith. He always sounds so sincere when he asks questions; Keith figures he must have perfected it over his years of teacher. You get more flies with honey and all that. Calvin makes for a good conversation regardless.

And Mr.Calvin often lets him go the earliest with a wink and something about good behavior being a reward. Keith always gives a shy smile in return before scrambling out the building and towards the library for what little time he has.

He once asks the teacher why he bothers with being nice to him.

Mr.Calvin just smiles sadly and says, “I don’t think you’re a bad kid, Keith. You’re angry, and you can’t solve someone’s anger by responding with more anger.” The teacher pauses and considers Keith carefully before saying, “I think you have a lot more to offer, kiddo.”

Keith had ducks his head, suddenly very embarrassed. The conversation doesn’t continue after that, but it leaves a warm feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Mr.Calvin is observant.

And so when Keith starts becoming tired, and sloppier, the man takes notice.

At one point Keith can’t be bothered to fight with anyone. Instead, during a quiet period, Keith simply walks up to Mr.Calvin’s desk and stands there for a moment.

The teacher looks up in surprise. “Keith, can I help you with something?”

Keith only stares back at him, then picks up the glass apple that adorned the desk, and drops it unceremoniously, letting it shatter on the ground.

Mr.Calvin just stares at him in shock for a long moment.

Keith is vaguely aware of the entire class doing the same.

Finally the teacher groans and pinchs the bridge of his nose, pushing his glasses up in the process. He sighs as he takes out a detention slip.

“Keith,” he begins, clearly annoyed, “next time you want to be kept after school, please just tell me, instead of breaking my things. I’m not fond of cleaning up the mess.”

Keith blinks in surprise.

Oh. Now he feels bad.

He tries to bend down to help clean up the glass.

“No, no, no,” the teacher says, waving him away. “The janitor will get it. Now go back to your seat.”

After that on the days that Keith wants to stay after, but had not come across a reason to incite a detention worthy incident naturally, he comes up to Mr.Calvin’s desk after the bell has rung and taps on the man’s desk wordlessly.

Mr.Calvin always looks at him in concern, but writes him a detention slip anyway.

The second time it happens, Mr.Calvin tries to talk with him during the detention.

“Keith,” Calvin says, “you know if something is… if something’s going on at home, then you can tell someone. You know that, right?”

Keith nods mutely, keeping his head down.

“Do you want to tell me why you don’t want to go home?” the man asks.

Keith shakes his head.

It would seem silly.

They wouldn’t believe him.

It would just make things worse.

Mr.Calvin sighs. “Okay,” the teacher says. “But if you ever do want to talk… I’m here. I’ll believe you.”

Keith feels something coil around his throat, tight and vice like, but just nods again.

When he mentions it to Brent, almost dismissively, the other boy had looks at him with careful consideration.

“I don’t know, man,” Brent says, “maybe you should say something? Your fosters aren’t normal.”

Keith’s pulse felt like it was fluttering at a hundred miles an hour. “Aren’t parents supposed to be strict?” he asks, the words sticking in his throat.

“Well, yeah, but not like that,” Brent says. “It’s not normal to not allow your kid to have _any_ kind of social life. Especially when you didn’t do anything wrong to begin with.”

Keith doesn’t know whether or not to be relieved. On the one hand, he’s glad to finally get some validation. The Albines _aren’t_ normal, they _aren’t_ right. But it also means that their behavior can’t be dismissed, that there is something wrong.

And what can he do about it?

“What am I going to say, Brent?” Keith demands. “No one’s going to do anything just because my foster parents are a bit strict. If anything they’ll say they’re doing the right thing, because ‘oh, you know how those foster kids are,’” he bites out.

Brent watches him carefully from the corner of his eye. “Okay, yeah, but didn’t Rick hit you that one time? That’s like-abuse or something innit’?”

Keith shakes his head with a derisive snort. “It was a slap. It’s not like it’s an ongoing thing, or even that bad. People spank their kids all the time, it’s not that different. No one would like it, but at worst they’d get a slap on the wrist. It’d just make my life worse in the long run.”

Brent glances down. “Yeah,” the other boy murmurs, “I guess you’re right.”

Honestly? If it wasn’t for Brent, Keith doesn’t know what he would do. He’s the life raft Keith clings to while his small flame of anger drowns at sea.

He may have given up entirely if it weren’t for his friend.

Brent, for his part, does his best to be supportive without being nosy. He can babble endlessly, but knows when and how to listen. He seems to just _genuinely_ want Keith to be happy.

It’s weird.

They had been hanging out during lunch since they first became friends. Usually they sit under a tree or something and Brent shares part of his packed lunch with Keith, who mainly just picks at the cafeteria food.

Keith had wondered, when they first began hanging out, why Brent didn’t seem to have any other friends. The kid was pretty outgoing and relatively sociable. It didn’t make sense that he wouldn’t have had another friend before Keith came along.

A month after the debacle with Rick, Keith finds out he was right. But Brent’s friends aren’t- weren’t- what he expected.

One day during lunch Brent had asks if Keith would be cool if they hung out with ‘some buddies’ of his. Keith, not wanting to keep Brent from any of his friends, and also curious, agrees.

As it turns out, the reason Keith hasn’t seen any of Brent’s friends is because they all appear to be much older, around Bastion’s age. In fact, it seems that Bastion kind of belongs to this group.

They’re high school students, probably around fifteen or sixteen, and Brent and Keith find five of them smoking out behind the high school next to the junior high. They greet Brent like an old friend, and ask about his brother. Brent is offered a light and took it without hesitation.

Keith doesn’t know why exactly that’s a surprise. He has smelt cigarette smoke on Brent before, and the boy has admitted to picking the habit up from his brother. But he’s never actually _seen_ Brent take a light before.

The entire situation makes Keith uncomfortable.

Brent introduces him to the group, and they are kind enough, offering him a cigarette as well, but Keith declines and stayes quiet most of the time.

“So what do you think of the guys?” Brent asks afterwards.

Keith shrugs. “They were…um, nice?”

Brent shakes his head with a slight laugh. “You don’t have to pretend man, I could tell you weren’t feeling it.”

Keith glances away, murmuring, “Sorry.”

“What for?” Brent asks genuinely. “I know they’re not gonna be everyone’s cuppa tea or whatever. Besides,” he gives Keith a light punch on the arm, “I’m fine if it’s just the two of us hanging. I can chill with those guys any day of the week. But finding time with you is like trying to walk bass ackwards over the border.”

“Bass ackwards?” Keith asks.

“Don’t think about it too much,” Brent says, waving his hand dismissively. “My point is, I’ll take whatever time I can get to hang with you, dude.”

Keith feels the tips of his ears heat up again, and smiles. “Thanks.”

It’s a complicated and frustrating time for Keith. He’s pushing against the iron fist of the Albines control, trying to manage his anger, and find ways to make time for himself.

So of course, the universe decides that things need to be _more_ complicated.

Because it’s around this time that Keith realizes that he’s starting to notice _things_.

Specifically, he starts noticing girls.

Which, would be complicated as is, except-

He starts to notice _guys_ around the same time too.

And he’s not exactly freaking out about it or anything-he knows what it means to be bisexual- but it still complicates things a bit.

Because now he has to try and work through that little crisis in his head, not to mention he has no idea how his classmates or Brent, much less the Albines, would respond if he ever let it slip that he apparently isn’t straight.

So he keeps it to himself for the most part.

It’s not as easy as he’d like.

And of course, Brent is the one who figures it out first.

In hindsight, Keith probably was not being subtle about watching some of the cute older guys out the corner of his eye, like Brent’s older brother, or about not minding physical affection from guys, or- anything really.

So they’re watching Brent’s brother work on his car one time while he’s parked outside the school, and Keith’s staring a bit too much.

“Keith,” Brent says, flicking Keith’s ear, “what’s up with you?”

Keith blinks and looks away, trying to hide the red tainting his cheeks. “Uh, nothing,” he says. “It’s just interesting to watch your brother work is all.”

Brent snorts. “Dude, that’s a little gay.”

Keith stiffens and draws his arms tighter around his knees.

There’s a long pause.

“Wait,” Brent says, incredulous, “ _are_ you gay?”

And this- Keith really doesn’t want to have this conversation.

“I don’t know. So what if I am?” Keith snaps.

Brent narrows his eyes at him and Keith shrinks under the attention.

Finally, Brent says, “Huh. Well it doesn’t matter if you are or not. Not to me at least.”

Keith jerks his head up so quickly he’s surprised he doesn’t get whiplash. “Wait, really?”

Brent shrugs. “Yeah. I mean why should I care?”

And Keith- doesn’t have an answer to that.

So instead of replying he just sets his chin on top of his knees, a smile playing at his lips.

After everything, Keith feels like he really should have learned to give Brent more credit. Because somehow, he’s still shocked when Brent brings up flying.

It’s about a month after the Albines had pulled him from any extracurricular activities, and Brent turns to him one day after Keith is let out of detention early and says, “So you know how you said riding reminds you flying with your mom or whatever, right?”

Keith skids to a stop in surprise, and turns to his friend. “I- uh, yeah. Yeah, I remember.”

“So, what if I told you that I asked around a bit, and found out there’s a place where you could do some _real_ flying,” Brent says, eyes gleaming.

Keith cocks his head slightly. “But… there isn’t?” Keith replies, unsure. “I mean, it’s not like hover cycles are common around here...or anywhere really.”

“Well,” Brent begins slyly, “you’re right about that. But I just happen to know a place where we could find some hover _bikes_.”

“What?” Keith’s brows shot up.

“Yeah,” Brent says, crossing his arms and smirking. “There’s a place my brother knows where there are a bunch of hover bikes that people use, usually to go racing or something.”

Keith shakes his head in bewilderment. “But- hover bikes are super difficult to take care of. There’s all the permits, and the money, not to mention a place to ride them legally-”

“Okay, sure. But that’s only if you do things by the book,” Brent cuts in. “These guys apparently retrofitted some old hover crafts with parts from the junkyard. No buying, no need to register. They all keep them at this race track they carved out right outside of town.”

“Let me get this straight,” Keith says. “You want us to go to an illegal race track, with illegal hovercrafts?”

Brent shrugs. “So we bend the rules a little, so what? We break the rules here all the time!”

Keith looks down at his shoes, a mix of emotions churning in him. There’s something warm in his chest, at the thought of Brent remembering what he had said all that time ago in passing. There’s the excitement at the prospect of being able to see, and maybe even fly, another hover craft after so long. But there’s also worry. He doesn’t want to get mixed up in the wrong side of the law. Things are already complicated enough for him as it was. Not to mention his foster parents.

“How will I even get there?” Keith asks. “It’s not like we can go all the way out to this illegal race track when we only have thirty minutes.”

Brent has the decency to look sheepish. “So that’s the part that’s a bit… complicated. If we’re gonna make this work, you’re probably going to have to sneak out.”

Keith takes a step back. “You’ve got to be kidding me?!”

Brent cringes.

“There’s no way,” Keith says. “I’ll never be able to pull it off! The Albines will _kill_ me. ”

“Yes, you will, and no, they won’t, because they won’t ever know you left, okay?” Brent says, putting a hand on Keith’s shoulder. “Look, my brother and I have done this tons of times, I can tell you a full proof way of getting out undetected.”

Keith glances down at the hand, but doesn’t knock it away.

Brent seems to take that as encouragement. “Look, I promise this will be worth it.”

Keith sighs, and says, “I hope you’re right.”

 

In the end, he sneaks out through his window a week after their conversation. It took some careful planning and execution, but using some natural foot holds and some improvised climbing gear he’s able to scale down the side of the house without much issue.

Brent and Bastion meet him at the end of the block.

“Ready for the best night of your life?” Brent asks.

Keith snorts but slips into the car without hesitation.

The racing ring is a dirt trail that had been haphazardly carved and then worn down in the middle of the forest outside the town, and is lit using home construction lights. It isn’t fancy, but it does the job.

Keith barely notices however, too preoccupied by the zipping hover crafts flying around the track.

He practically sprints to the fence as soon as they arrive.

He honestly can’t remember the last time he’s seen a hover bike. They aren’t incredibly common, due to being a bit impractical and difficult to acquire. Hover bikes are much smaller than hover cycles. There were only two main turbines in the front and back, and they don’t have the control that a cycle would.

But they fly fast and they fly hard.

It’s incredible to see so many of them in one place.

“Worth it?” Brent says as he scrambles up next to him, fingers locking through the fence grate, and brown hair sticking up in all directions.

“Worth it,” Keith replies, eyes glued to the track.

It becomes a thing. Sneaking out at night to go to the race track.

Only of course, just watching isn’t enough for him for long. As soon as Keith sees the hover bikes in action, he feels an itch spark up under his skin, the desire to fly suddenly so prevalent Keith can feel it in his bones. He hadn’t even considered flying a possibility, had been content to just wait. But now that it’s right in front of him it feels like an ache that’s been there all along. Keith feels himself going stir crazy the more he dwells on it.

He mentions as much to Brent.

His friend just shoots him a conspiratory smile.

The next time they go out, almost no one is at the ring.

The cycles are still docked there however.

“Where is everyone?” Keith asks with a frown.

“Thursdays and Sundays there aren’t any major races,” Brent says as he leads him over to the hover bike rikes. “You’re not really supposed to be here without special permission from the ‘owner.’ But as it turns out, Bastion’s in good with em’.”

“Nothing like a reliable dealer,” Keith says drily.

“Nothing like em’!” Brent chirps back.

It’s not as if Bastion’s past times were a secret to anyone.

“Why do people leave these here anyway?” Keith feels the need to ask, even as the blood is pounding in his ears at the prospect of finally, _finally_ being able to fly again.

As Brent bends down to begin picking the lock to one of the chained hover crafts, he shrugs and says, “What else are they gonna do? Bring their illegal hover craft into the city where someone might find it and ask about the paperwork?”

Keith inclines his head. “Fair point. But don’t they get stolen like this?”

“Sure,” Brent replies as the lock comes loose and he moves on to the next. “But it doesn’t really matter. Honestly, most people probably don’t even remember whose bike is actually whose anymore; they make their rounds between so many people. There are fights over them all the time.”

“So we won’t get in trouble for this?” Keith asks warily.

Brent pulls out the bikes. “I never said _that_ ,” he says with a smirk.

Keith gives him a panicked look and Brent laughs. “Don’t worry. So long as we bring these back in one piece, we’ll be fine.”

He pulls out the other hover bike and Keith sets a hand on it tentatively, feeling the energy in the cycle buzzing beneath his palm.

It feels like something is about to burst in his chest.

“Ready?” Brent asks, already mounting the hover bike.

“Ready,” Keith says.

He was wrong.

Whatever is in his chest doesn’t burst. It _blooms_. Like a sunflower in summer’s heat.

It feels like some pressure that has been pressing against his heart and lungs that he hadn’t even been aware of is suddenly released all at once, reaching out from the center of his chest and travelling across his limbs like fire. It feels like being _alive_.

As great as boarding had been, there was nothing as exhilarating, or as freeing, as flying.

Keith feels like he could shout to the heavens as they zoom around the track. Hell, he’s fairly sure he does just that.

This. _This_ is freedom. This is happiness.

And Keith suddenly feels like he’s six years old again with his mother behind him, hands over his, teaching him how to control the hover cycle for the first time.

The telltale tightness in his chest still comes with the thought of her, but whatever is blooming inside of him just pulls it into its own gravity and propels it forward with the rest of him.

This is home.

It isn’t easy though, trying to control the bike. It’s been years since he’d last flown, and his mother is not there beside him. But the controls are the same as they had been on the cycle, and Keith finds himself relying on muscle memory. He’s rusty, but it doesn’t dull the thrill by any margin.

When they finally stop for a break, Keith is smiling so wide he thinks his face might actually split in two. He can’t remember the last time he was this happy.

“Dude!” Brent says as he jumps off the cycle and rushes up to Keith. “That was amazing!”

Keith feels his ears heat up (they seemed to be doing that more and more around Brent lately).

“Uhm, it was?” he asks, laughing slightly.

“Yes!” the brunette boy cries, throwing his arms wide. “You flew around that track like a pro! And those turns-” Brent spins and place before plopping down on the ground. “It was awesome. How did you even learn to fly like that?”

Keith laughs slightly and sits down cross legged across from his friend. “I don’t know. I haven’t flown since my mom died and that was years ago. It probably wasn’t that impressive.”

Brent shakes his head. “No way, man. I bet you could give half the people here a run for their money.”

“I’m not one for running,” Keith snarks, “flying’s more my style.”

Brent stares at him in silence for a moment, before he lets out a snort that leaves him devolving into giggles.

“Oh my God,” the boy says, “you have the _worst_ jokes.”

Keith can’t stop smiling.

They don’t fly every time they come by the track, for obvious reasons. But it starts to become a second home to Keith.

Bastion always drives them, and his friends are usually there. While Keith still isn’t totally comfortable around them, they are pretty nice.

He tries the cigarette one of them offers him and feels as if he nearly dies choking on the smoke.

Brent pats him on the back sympathetically and offers him some water.

It’s- fun, actually.

Keith still sometimes gets detentions in school, his anger is no longer threatening to collapse in on itself, but it’s still there, and he finds that his patience is still practically nonexistent with most people. But he starts choosing his battles a bit better. Stops tapping on Mr.Calvin’s desk.

“It seems like you’re doing better,” Mr.Calvin says to him one day.

“I’m still in detention,” Keith points out, but there’s no real heat behind it.

Calvin laughs. “Yes, but I see you less. And you look… better. Happier.”

Keith gives him a tiny smile. “I guess?”

The man smiles back. “I’m glad.”

Keith’s even managing to keep his head down more around the Albines. He does his chores, does his homework, and stays in his room when he’s supposed to (except of course, for sneaking out at night). He doesn’t yell anymore. The only time Yelma can seem to find reason to punish him with excessive and petty cleaning is when he receives detentions.

They eye him suspiciously, but they don’t comment on his change in behavior.

It makes it easier to sneak out.

Things are going better for Keith now then they have in years.

 

But Keith forgets that there is only one law of the universe that really matters: Murphy’s.

 

He and Brent had begun flying outside of the race track sometimes. There are several, badly kept paths for the hover bikes around the area that allow for more challenge and a bit more freedom.

At the time they are having a race of their own on a track they haven’t yet travelled. They are flying both figuratively and literally through the trees.

But there’s a reason people rarely took the cycles out past the track.

Brent and Keith notice the fallen tree at same time, and both pull their bikes to the side, trying to stop in time.

There’s no way though, their momentum is too great.

Keith sees this, and pulls up, just barely skimming over the top of the tree, and spinning from the force of his turn as he reaches the other side before coming to a stop.

Brent doesn’t quite have the same reflexes.

He careens straight into the tree.

“Brent!” Keith calls, jumping off the cycle and scrambling over the trunk.

His friend groans as he rolls away from the wrecked bike.

“Are you okay?” Keith asks as he slides down the side of the tree and rushes to his friend’s side.

“I think,” Brent says with a moan. “Probably bruised to hell and back though.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” Keith says, though relieved that his friend’s alright. He glances back at the tree.

The bike is completely, _irreparably_ wrecked. It practically shattered upon impact. The turbines are a mess of bent and broken metal and the frame is so badly dented the entire body would need to be replaced. Not to even mention the broken wheels and handles.

“The bike’s definitely not walking away from this,” he observes as he helps Brent stand.

His friend looks over to the craft and gives another groan. “Shit,” Brent says. “We are _so_ fucked.”

Keith doesn’t comment and just brings his hover bike back over the tree and helps his friend onto the back.

Brent is mostly back on his feet, though limping slightly, by the time they arrive back at the race track.

They relock the bike Keith had been borrowing, and then immediately rush over to Bastion.

“Woah, hey, what happened?” Bastion asks as they grab onto his sleeve and start tugging him back towards the car.

“Explain later,” Brent says. “Right now, we should _go_.”

Bastion listens to what happened in the car and tells them that it’s probably best if they avoid the track for a while.

They both agree.

Keith manages to mostly relax after that. He’s a bit worried about what might happen if ( _when_ ) they go back to the track, but he figures they’re fine for the time being.

Brent doesn’t however. His friend is jumpy and jittery for the next three days. Keith doesn’t fully understand why until they’re at lunch, sitting under their tree, and suddenly a hulking teenager, probably about seventeen, marches up to them.

“Hey brat!” the teen shouts, and Brent goes rigid, eyes widening.

“Oh no,” Brent breathes.

Keith looks between them, caught between trepidation and confusion.

Brent stands up quickly, babbling, as he tries to edge away, “Heeeey, Nate, long time, no see. What brings you to our neck of the woods on this fine-”

He’s cut off by the older boy, Nate, grabbing him by the front of his shirt, and causing him to squawk in fear.

Keith stands up quickly and rushes to his friend’s side, shouting, “Put him down!”

“You wrecked my bike,” Nate growls in Brent’s face.

“Me?” Brent asks, feigning ignorance. “How could I have wrecked your bike? I mean I don’t even know-”

“I know it was you, you moron,” the older boy spits. “Lucas told me all about you and this fucking chink-”

Keith bristles at that. “I’m Korean, you asshole,” he interjects as he stands beside his friend.

“What. _Ever_ ,” Nate grinds out. “Lucas told me about your little escapades, and about how you came back the other day without _my_ bike. Lonnie and I found it wrecked in some tree out by the old trails.”

Brent gulps. “Look, Nate, buddy, I understand you’re upset-”

“You _ruined_ my bike, Little Bastion,” the teenager snarls and began forcing Brent to back up, until the boy’s back hit the bark of the tree. Brent made a high, distressed sound in the back of his throat. “And you’re going to pay.”

Keith grabs for Nate’s arm, shouting, “Hey, back off!”, but is elbowed to the side.

“Oh God,” Brent whimpers, cringing away and screwing his eyes shut. “Just not the face, okay?”

That seems to give Nate a pause, and the older boy frowns.

“What,” he says, expression deadpan.

“Just- if you gotta hit me, please don’t go for the face,” Brent says, still keeping his eyes closed.

But Nate just rolls his eyes. “I’m not going to _hit_ you, moron. When I say you’re going to pay, I mean that _literally_.”

Brent’s eyes snap open. “Wait, what?”

Nate grits his teeth. “ _You_ ,” he says slowly, pointing to Brent, “owe _me_ ,” he points to himself, “money to make up for wrecking my hover bike. And you’re going to pay up.”

Brent stares at him wide eyed. “Can’t you just hit me?”

Nate drops him, causing Brent to slide down the tree and onto his ass.

“I’m going to have to buy a lot of new parts, and you are _going_ to give me the money you owe me for breaking my shit,” the older boy says, glaring down at him.

“Nate, I don’t have that kind of money,” Brent says, panicked.

“Better start looking then,” Nate snaps. “Otherwise I’m gonna have to collect from your brother, Little Bastion.”

Keith glances in confusion from Nate to Brent. He honestly has no idea what to make of any of this. What did that even _mean_?

Brent shifted onto his knees, pleading. “Look, there’s gotta be something else- I- I could work for you? Help you piece everything back together! I could be like your personal whipping boy for however long it takes you to rebuild.”

Nate snorts. “Not interested. Besides, what do you know about hover bikes anyway.”

“I’m a fast learner,” Brent says desperately. “But I- _we_ \- I can’t give you that kind of money!”

“Figure it out,” the older boy sneers. “Otherwise-”

“A race,” Keith cuts in quickly, not fully processing the words before they’re out of his mouth.

Nate stops and turns to look at him. “What?” he asks, brow raised.

Keith’s heart is thundering in his chest. “I- A race. We race for it. If we win, then we don’t have to pay you anything. If-if you win, then Brent has to give you the money.”

Nate takes a step toward him. “A race,” the boy repeats, “between me and _him_?”

Keith shakes his head. “No. Between me and you. And if you win, then _we_ have to pay you.”

Brent stares at him with wide eyes. “Keith what are you doing?” he asks.

Keith ignores him.

Nate laughs. “You think I’m going to _race_ you? Ha! No dice. You two owe me that money, no two ways about it.”

“What,” Keith taunts, “are you afraid you’ll get beaten by a couple of kids?”

The older boy scoffs. “You don’t think that’s actually going to _work_ on me, do you?”

Keith shrugs. “If you’re so sure you’ll win, then why not?”

“Because it’s a waste of my time,” Nate snaps.

“You get your money either way, though,” Keith explains. “But this way- this way we at least get a chance.”

Nate narrows his eyes at him. “You wreck someone else’s property and you want a ‘chance’?”

Keith doesn’t back down, and Nate eyes him considering.

Finally, after a long drawn out moment of silence, Nate says, “Fine. You want a race so bad, I’ll give it to you. But if I win, you _both_ owe me. Deal?”

“Deal,” Keith says without hesitation.

Nate gives a short sharp laugh. “Hope you’ve got something good up your sleeve kid. We ride Wednesday night, eleven o’clock. Be there or I’m collecting from both of you.”

With that the older boy walked away.

“Dude!” Brent says as soon as Nate is out of ear shot. “Okay, one, that was awesome. Two, are you out of your damn mind!”

“I panicked!” Keith cries. “I had to come up with something on the spot and that was the first thing that popped into my head.”

“Well,” Brent sighs, letting his head thunk back against the tree, “here’s hoping we don’t get arrested when we inevitably break into a bank to steal the money we’re gonna have to give Nate.”

Keith frowns. “A little faith would be nice.”

“Yeah, I bet it would be,” Brent agrees. “Too bad for us.”

Keith groans.

 

They don’t usually sneak out on Wednesdays, but Keith doesn’t notice anything unusual when he slips out of his house that night.

Nate is waiting for them when they arrive.

Keith expects the others to be racing as well, but the crowd of spectators seems to be waiting. For them.

“You ready, kid?” Nate asks, arms crossed as he leans against the fence.

There are some snickers from the teenagers watching on.

Keith tries to dull his panic.

“I uh, I don’t have a bike,” Keith says.

“Yeah?” Nate cocks a brow. “Me neither. Weird.”

And yeah, okay, Keith can admit he walked right into that one.

“Lucas’s got us covered.” Nate gestures towards two hovercrafts sitting at the starting line.

Keith nods, his mouth going dry.

He moves to follow Nate onto the track, but is stopped by a hand on his shoulder.

Brent looks back at him, more serious than Keith could recall ever seeing him.

“You can do this,” Brent says. “You’re the best I’ve seen on that track. You can beat this guy.”

Keith feels something swell up inside of him, but doesn’t dwell on it. Instead he gives a small smirk and says, “Ah, there’s the false vote of confidence I was looking for.”

Brent let’s go of his shoulder and gives a wary smile. “You know me dude, better late than never.”

Keith walks out onto the race track, ignoring the laughs and jeers from the onlookers, and mounts the hover bike.

“Ten times around,” Nate says. “First one over the finish line wins the wager.”

Keith nods.

When the signal sounds, his entire world narrows. He doesn’t think about the people watching, he doesn’t think about the Albines, he doesn’t even think about Brent. His focus belongs only to the race track and his opponent.

Keith flies fast and hard, and in the back of his mind he hears his mother saying, “Careful not to overcorrect, when you turn hard, pull left like this” and “Never pull straight up unless you absolutely have to” and “keep your weight this way, honey, there you go! You’re getting it.”

That same fire blooms in his chest, spreading all the way from his neck to the tips of his toes.

He doesn’t even realize at first when the race is over. Everything feels like a faraway blur.

But he notices that he can no longer see his opponent and comes to a stop.

When he turns, it’s like emerging from under water. He can hear the roar of the crowd, and can see Brent going wild by the track’s entrance, and Nate is stopped several yards back, looking back at him with surprised eyes.

Keith slowly pulls the bike back towards the finish line.

“Uh,” Keith says awkwardly, “is the race… over?”

“Yeah, kid,” Nate says, looking at him as if Keith were from another plant. “Race is over.”

Before Keith has the chance to ask anything else, Brent is tackle hugging him.

“You won!” Brent yells, and pulls back, positively beaming. “I mean, I know I said I thought you could, but I was totally lying, oh my God, I can’t believe you actually _won_!”

Keith’s head spins a bit as he’s pulled into another hug, knocking the wind out of him.

“I won?” Keith wheezes, trying to pry away from Brent’s grip.

“Yes!” Brent crows, taking the hint and letting go. “Oh man, you totally just saved both our asses!”

Someone clears their throat.

Brent jumps away from Keith quickly, and positions himself behind the darker haired boy.

Nate considers them carefully. Finally, he says, “Good flying out there, kid. It was a great race.”

Keith tries not to preen at the praise. “Thanks.”

Nate gives him a slight grin. “Maybe we can do it again some time.”

“Yeah, sure,” Brent says from behind him, “but uh…we’re-we’re all good, right, Nate?”

Nate’s smile immediately drops. “Yeah,” he says, begrudgingly. “You got out of paying for the damage you did _this_ time. But you’re still on my shit list, Little Bastion.”

Brent gives a sigh of relief. “I can live with that.”

Keith is riding a high all the way back to the Albines. He had always hoped that he could be a good pilot, like his mom had been. And if today meant anything then… then maybe that could be true.

It’s a great feeling. But it also leaves him bone deep exhausted. He’s ready for nothing more than to clamber back into his room and collapse onto his bed.

Except when he climbs back in through the window, he finds Yelma and Rick waiting for him.

Keith yelps at the sight of them, and nearly falls back out the window.

Yelma’s glare is piercing from where she sits on his bed, and Rick looks thunderous, standing stiffly just inside his bedroom door.

Keith knows he should go into damage control mode, try to explain, start apologizing, do _anything_ really.

Instead, he stands there, frozen.

“Where the hell have you been?” Rick demands, and well, _that_ feels familiar.

“I-I was just getting some air-”Keith tries.

“You were sneaking out,” the man snarls. “And this isn’t the first time, is it?!”

“No, I-”

“We’ve been here for three hours,” Yelma cuts in icily. “We considered calling the cops.”

Keith pales.

“I knew it was too quiet,” Rick says, although whether he’s saying it to Keith or himself, Keith isn’t sure. “You’ve been trying to hide the fact that you’ve been sneaking around.”

He strides forward, grabbing Keith’s arm. “Where have you been going?”

Keith just looks down at his feet. He doesn’t reply.

Rick growls, shaking him. “I don’t believe in corporal punishment, boy. Don’t make me rethink that stance.”

“I just go walking,” Keith says quietly, his eyes still downcast.

It doesn’t matter what he says at this point. He’s already screwed.

“Walking,” Rick says. “You aren’t going to give another excuse like being _lonely_ are you?”

Keith flinches.

Rick’s nostrils flare, but he drops his foster son. “I want to know where you go. What, are you off buying drugs?”

Keith jerks at that, shaking his head quickly. “No, of course not!”

“Stealing?” Rick presses.

“No!” Keith cries. “I wasn’t doing _anything_.”

Rick was grinding his teeth. “Fine,” the man practically hisses. “You’ve proven that you can’t be trusted. If we give you so much as an inch you’ll take a mile.”

Keith feels his heart sink.

 

Over the next week his room is ‘renovated’. The window is completely removed and replastered so that a small, thin window fit’s in its place. Keith can’t even fit his head through it, much less his body. A lock from the outside is also added to his door.

Rick informs him that the police have been notified of his tendency to ‘run away,’ and have been told to pick him up if they see him anywhere outside of the neighborhood or the school.

Keith feels like something is strangling him, as if a boa constrictor has wrapped itself around his chest and squeezing.

He wants to cry.

He’s now a prisoner in his own home.

Thank _God_ for Brent.

His friend immediately goes into damage control mode when Keith tells him what happened. He tells Keith to take note of what kind of locks are on his door, and to take a picture if he can.

Keith doesn’t have a camera, but he writes down what identifiers he can find, and tries to sketch it out.

When he gives it to Brent, his friend nods and folds the piece of paper up, placing it into his back pocket.

Two days later, during lunch, Brent arrives with an unattached lock that looks exactly like the one on his bedroom door.

“This it?” Brent asks.

Keith nods slowly. “Um, yes… why do you have that?”

Brent smirks. “Watch and learn, Padawan.”

Keith’s brow crinkles. “Pada-what?”

Brent’s smile drops. “Dude, this is just sad at this point.”

Brent teaches him how to pick locks, specifically, the lock that is now keeping him bound to his bedroom.

They practice repeatedly for a week before Keith can pick the lock in a matter of seconds.

Brent explains to him the different items that can be used in lock picking, but at the end of his friend’s impromptu training, Brent gives him a small set of lock picks of his own.

Keith can’t imagine being more grateful.

However, he points out to his friend, he really can’t sneak out to the races anymore. It’s almost guaranteed that he will be caught.

Brent nods but says they will come up with a plan.

And in a few days’ time, they have one.

Keith explains when his foster parents are most likely to be asleep or out, and Brent sets a time to drop by the Albines’ every few days.

Keith keeps track of time on his watch, and at one o’clock he quickly and quietly picks the deadbolt lock on his room and sneaks downstairs. Luckily the main door doesn’t have any kind of alarm system. So there are no issues in slipping out with very little noise.

And Brent’s there, waiting for him.

They don’t do much, just walk the block or sit in front of his house for hours at a time.

It’s not much, but it’s something. Some modicum of freedom, to prevent Keith from going crazy.

“You could run away,” Brent suggests on the fourth night.

“The police would find me and then I’d either be right back here or in juvie,” Keith replies munching on one of the apples he had stolen from the kitchen (Brent had already finished his).

“What if you told them what was happening,” Brent says. “I mean locking your foster kid in their room and not allowing them to go anywhere… that’s gotta be like abuse or something right?”

Keith holds back a flinch. “It’s not.”

Brent looks down at the gravel, swaying his skateboard side to side with his feet. “I bet you could learn to avoid the police.”

“And then what?” Keith asks. “Live on the run for the rest of my life? I can’t exactly get a job, at least not for a couple of years. Even then, I probably won’t be able to afford much. And it’s not like I can go to the government for money.”

“You could live with me!” Brent says, lighting up as if the idea just occurred to him.

Keith shakes his head. “You seriously think no one would find out? What, instead of being locked away in the Albines for half the day, I’d just be locked away in your garage 24/7? Not to mention your parents.”

Brent’s smile drops, and Keith can’t help but feel like an asshole.

But there isn’t anything his friend could suggest that he hasn’t already thought of.

“Well, we could run away _together_ ,” Brent says thoughtfully, like he’s legitimately mulling the idea over.

Keith gives a sharp bark of laughter. “That’s kind of gay, Brent.”

“So?” the other boy shoots back. “ _You’re_ kind of gay. Besides, it could be like a romance novel.” Brent waggles his eyebrows at Keith.

“Bi,” Keith corrects, holding back a laugh. “And I hope not. Those always have shitty endings.”

Brent rolls his eyes. “Potato-patahto. And anyways, I don’t see you throwing out anything more helpful than romance novel run aways.”

Keith grimaces. “That’s because there _isn’t_ anything, Brent. I’ve thought of all of it already, trust me.”

Brent looks away, staring at the lamp post across the street. “So what? You’re just going to stay here, miserable, until you graduate? Seven years is a long time.”

“No,” Keith says, shaking his head, “I just have to hold out for another year.”

Brent’s brow furrows. “A year?”

“When you’re twelve you can apply for any military organization training facility. If you want… you can choose to just become an official ward of the international state,” Keith explains, and watches as Brent’s eyes go wide. “I’m planning to apply to the Galaxy Garrison,” he admits softly.

“The military?” Brent practically whispers. “You- you want to go into the _military_?”

It really seems to sink in, and Brent’s expression turns angry, and he raises his voice. “You can’t even handle being with a couple of strict parents, and you think you’ll last in the fucking military?!”

It’s a low blow, but Keith expects it. He had kept this from Brent for a reason.

“My mom was a fighter pilot,” Keith admits quietly, and Brent goes still. “I don’t know if I can make it or not but… I have to try. Besides,” Keith glances behind him at the Albines unassuming suburban house, “I can’t stay here. I’m tired of my ‘family’ being up to the luck of the draw. This is the only choice I get to have.”

Brent’s expression crumples. “The Galaxy Garrison is thousands of miles away,” he says.

Keith looks down at his shoes, unable to face the hurt in Brent’s eyes. “Yeah.”

“You’ll have to leave me,” Brent says, as if it needed to be explained.

Keith sighs deeply. “Yeah.”

And then, so quiet that Keith almost misses it, “I don’t want to lose you.”

His heart constricts in his chest. “I know,” he whispers. “I’m sorry.”

They go quiet, both staring across the street at the street lamp illuminating their small circle of the Earth. After a long moment, Brent’s fingers intertwine with his on the sidewalk between them.

They don’t say much else the rest of the night.

 

Yelma notices the missing apples.

Of course she does.

“Keith,” she says, icy eyes piercing, “there is no snacking after dinner.”

Keith freezes up.

“Uh. Sorry,” he mutters. “I got hungry.”

Her eyes narrow. “ _When_ did you get hungry?”

Keith feigns confusion. “What do you mean, _when_? After dinner.”

“When after dinner?”

“After I did the dishes,” Keith says.

Yelma doesn’t look convinced. “You were hungry twenty minutes after dinner?”

Keith bristles. “It’s not like I could eat much last night. Considering it was _lactose_.”

And that actually _wasn’t_ a lie. One of the sensitive topics in the house was of food. The Albines still refused to believe Keith when he told them, multiple times, that he was lactose intolerant, and continued to force dishes with milk, cheese, or anything of the sort on him.

The night before Yelma had served some weird casserole. It was so thoroughly covered in cheese, Keith had a difficult time finding any bit of the meal that he could actually eat. Yelma had chided him multiple times, as normal, to not pick at his food and just eat. He had been hungry soon after dinner for that very reason. It actually was why he had gotten the apples.

The only lie was really that he had gotten them _before_ the Albines inevitably locked him in his room.

“Enough with your excuses,” the woman rolls her eyes, as normal. “I do not remember you leaving with two apples.

Keith looks at her as if _she_ was the strange one. “Okay… but I _did_? I mean I put them in my pockets, but it wasn’t like I was hiding it or anything.”

“If you’re sneaking out again, boy,” Rick says from behind him, causing Keith to jump and turn to face the man standing in the doorway, “we’ll know about it.”

“Oh yeah,” Keith sneers, “I somehow walked out of my _locked room_ , got an apple, and then _relocked_ the door. That makes a lot of sense.”

“Watch your tone,” the man says coldly. “And you’ve proven yourself untrustworthy multiple times now. I’m not going to just take you at your word.”

Keith throws out a hand in frustration. “Then take me at common sense! I took the apples, I admit to that. How and why would I have left my room in the middle of the night to get a few _apples?_ That room is basically a fortress, _you_ made sure of that.”

Rick’s eyes narrow. “I better not find out about any more funny business from you.”

And with that he walks away. It’s not the relief it should be.

Keith warns Brent that next day that they should be extra careful the next few days. If Rick was suspicious that could make things more difficult.

“Man,” Brent complains, “those apples were good, but not _that_ good.”

 

The next week or so Rick does keep an even closer eye on him, and he and Brent are only able to meet three times. But his foster father’s paranoia seems to gradually dissipate, and after a while things are back to Keith’s version of normal.

Over a month after his new ‘imprisonment,’ and a few weeks of covert meetings with his friend, Brent and he somehow land on the topic of love interests.

“Okay, so what about Nina?” Brent asks.

Keith shrugs. “She’s pretty, I guess?”

“Okay, sure,” Brent says, “but would you _kiss_ her?”

“I don’t know,” Keith replies. “Would _you_?”

Brent wrinkles his nose. “Nah. She is pretty, but she’s also super annoying. Like I feel like if I tried to kiss her, she’d probably try to nag me about brushing my teeth or somethin’.”

Keith laughs at that.

“What about Garret then?” Brent proposes. “Kissable, or nah?”

“If by kissable you mean punchable,” Keith snorts.

“But you gotta admit, he’s got a cute face,” Brent says.

“You just said that personality matters!” Keith retorts.

“I said no such thing.” Brent’s smirk is far too self-satisfied.

“If _you_ have such strong opinions on it, then how about you?” Keith challenges. “Would _you_ kiss Garret?”

“Sure,” Brent replies almost automatically. “I think I could grow partial to the taste of douchebag in the morning.”

Keith chokes on his own laughter, burying his face in his friend’s shoulder to try and quiet his giggling.

“Bet it tastes like a breakfast burrito,” Keith says through his snickering.

Brent is actually biting his own sleeve to keep his laughter quiet.

It takes a few moments for them to finally catch their breath.

“Okay then,” Brent says once they’ve calmed down, but still smiling wide, “what about me?”

Keith raises a brow. “What _about_ you?”

His friend makes a noise of protest. “Would you kiss _me_ , you idiot?”

“Hmm,” Keith feigns consideration, leaving Brent in suspense for a moment before saying, “Yeah, sure, I guess I’d kiss your dumb face.”

“Rude,” Brent says sticking his tongue out.

“What about me then?” Keith teases.

Brent pretends to deliberate on the question for a moment. “Well, you’re cute enough I guess. And you probably don’t taste like douchebag. So yeah, sure.”

Keith laughs, and the conversation mostly devolves from them. But they’re eventually drawn to a slightly different topic.

“Dude, have you even had your first kiss yet?” Brent asks.

“Huh?” Keith turns to him. “Uh… no?”

Brent squints at him.

“Why?” Keith asks. “Have _you_?”

“Sure,” Brent says, smirking.

“Really? Who?” Keith inquires, genuinely curious.

“Mika back in second grade.”

Keith snorts. “That doesn’t count.”

“Does so!”

“No way,” Keith says, shaking his head. “You were way too young for that to count.”

“It wasn’t that long ago!” Brent protests.

“Can you really say that you kissed her for the same reasons you’d kiss someone now?” Keith challenges.

Brent raises a finger, then stops and sighs, mumbling, “No.”

Keith crosses his arms. “Well then, there you go. Doesn’t count.”

“Kill joy,” Brent mutters, but then stops, as if considering something. “Hey Keith?”

“Yeah?”

“You know, since neither of us have had our first kiss… and you wouldn’t mind kissing my stupid face, and I wouldn’t mind kissing your stupid face… maybe we could… you know?” Brent proposes, stumbling a bit over his words as he gestures between them.

Keith’s eyes go wide. “Wait, seriously?”

Brent nods tentatively. “Yeah. I mean, I meant it when I said you were cute. And I know I’m cute, don’t worry, you don’t have to say it. So- why not? You know? Just to see.”

Keith felt butterflies flare up in his stomach and his lips go dry.

He bites at his bottom lip, self-conscious, but nods. “Yeah,” Keith breathes, swallowing thickly. “Yeah, okay.”

Keith moves closer to Brent, staring into hazel green eyes, their hands interlocking as they were wont to do these days.

Brent leans in first, and Keith does his best to follow his friend’s lead.

Keith knew a bit about kissing in theory. That you’re supposed to tilt your head so that you don’t bump noses, and you don’t purse your lips, at least not the way people do in movies.

But besides that, he hasn’t got a clue.

When their lips touch it’s the barest of pressure at first, a slight brush. But they both press forward just a bit further, just a bit firmer, and it sends something warm tingling up Keith’s spine, and that same flower that had been reserved for the racetrack is suddenly blossoming in his chest again.

It’s not long or drawn out or even particularly passionate. But it’s not just a peck either. It’s sweet and soft and warm, and Keith couldn’t imagine a better first kiss. They break the kiss briefly to catch a breath, only to lean back in and-

And then Keith is being ripped away from Brent, and thrown onto the pavement.

“What the hell?!” Brent cries, jumping up.

Keith is staring up at Rick standing between them.

The man’s expression is _terrifying_. His eyes no longer cold, but wild, a snarl pulling at his lips.

“So this is what you’ve been doing?” Rick all but screeches, advancing on Keith, causing the boy the scramble back. “You sneak out of the house to kiss faggots?”

“What the fuck, man? Back off!” Brent yells, jumping onto Rick’s back, trying to pull him down.

The man rips the boy off of him with ease, causing Brent to stumble and fall into the grass, and whirls on him. Keith struggles to stand and come to his friend’s defense

“Get the fuck off of my property before I have you arrested!” The man roars, and Keith can _see_ the terror in Brent’s eyes

Keith is beyond startled at Rick’s sudden violence and aggression, it’s almost kind of jarring. The man could be physical, but he always seemed to be cold. Calculating. But this. This looks like blind rage.

And Keith is scared.

“Run,” Keith manages to gasp out to his friend.

He’s caught off guard once again when Rick’s backhand sends him reeling.

But Keith can see Brent scrambling away as fast as he could down the street.

“You keep your whore mouth shut,” Rick hisses, twisting his hand into Keith’s hair and _dragging_ him back to the house.

Keith cries out in pain, and tries to pull away, but that only seemed to make it worse.

“We bring you into our home, we feed you, clothe you, provide for you,” the man rants as he slams the door to the house shut. “And _this_ is how you repay us?”

Yelma is standing at the end of the hallway, watching them with detachment. And for once, her eyes don’t look icy and piercing. They look _dead_.

“I didn’t do anything!” Keith pleads, grabbing the hand pulling him by his hair.

And he doesn’t know what’s happening. Doesn’t understand how Rick caught him, doesn’t know what the man will do. The uncertainty is terrifying.

“Enough _lying_!” The man bellows as he hauls Keith towards the cellar door. “You sneak out of the house every night, doing who knows what with neighborhood boys. I won’t have it!”

“I’m sorry!” Keith cries, terrified as the door is wrenched open. He tries to fight against Rick, tries to remember what Alicia and Ron had taught him, but he’s still reeling from the backhand from earlier.

Instead of responding, Rick bodily _shoves_ him down the basement stairs, and Keith falls, and falls, and for a moment he thinks he might fall forever, but then the back of his head cracks against the cement of the cellar floor and he feels fresh blood start gushing from the wound as he lets out a gasp of pain.

Keith curls up on the ground, hands going to cradle his head. The world feels fuzzy and the pain is nearly unbearable, starting at the base of his skull and racing down his back. And he has the sudden, gut wrenching understanding in that moment that he might not be alive by the end of tonight.

Rick might _actually_ kill him.

He’s _terrified_.

“I let you live in my _house_ ,” Rick snarls with disgust as he thunders down the stairs. “We took you into our home. And all we ask is that you _respect the rules_.”

“Please,” Keith whimpers from the ground, unable to hold back tears of pain (unable to quell the despair and fear).

“But no,” the man sneers as he comes to a stop next to Keith. “Ever since you’ve arrived you’ve _refused_ to show the barest amount of respect. Breaking the rules, lying to us, sneaking out! And now _this?!_ ”

Keith shakes, and he’s mumbling _please, please, please_ over and over again as he tries to curl away from the man.

And he doesn’t even really know what he’s asking at this point.

Please what?

Please stop?

Please forgive me?

Please, someone save me?

It doesn’t matter.

Keith thinks ‘ _I want to go home_ ,’ and is suddenly struck by the fact that this _is_ home.

There’s nowhere safe _to_ _go_.

The man is pulling his belt from his pants, still raving like a mad man.

“But I won’t have it any more,” Rick says, folding the belt in two as it comes lose. “I won’t have a _deviant_ under my roof!”

At the first _Crack!_ of the belt striking his skin, Keith _shrieks_.

His entire right side lights up with fiery pain.

“No, no, no, no,” Keith says, voice shaky and desperate. “Please, no, Please, I’m sorry, _I’m sorry_ , I’m-”

Another scream cuts him off as the belt comes down again, and Keith is sobbing.

Rick doesn’t seem to care where he’s hitting. He’s simply swinging the belt as hard as he can, and letting the leather crack against Keith’s skin wherever it may land. The area of impact from the thrashing is limited due to how Keith is curled up, but that makes it all the worse as the belt repeatedly strikes his right side and back.

It’s agonizing.

And Keith, Keith is sobbing, _begging_ for Rick to please, please, _please stop_ , he’s hurting him. He gasps out apologies, but he doesn’t know for what.

He isn’t even sure how many times he’s been struck, he just wants it to stop, stop, _stop_.

“Please!” he screams as the belt comes down on him again, leaving angry, bleeding welts in its wake.

 _Please_.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” But the lashes keep coming, as do Rick’s vile, raving, insults.

_I’m sorry, I don’t understand._

“I didn’t mean to, I promise, I’ll- I’ll-”And Keith honestly isn’t even entirely sure what he’s saying anymore. He’s hysteric and the pain is too much, and he’s just saying _anything_ that might _possibly_ get Rick to _stop_.

_I don’t understand why it was wrong._

His pleas are distraught and directionless.

 _I just wanted something good_.

“Please stop,” he sobs, voice weak and fading, throat ripped raw from screaming.

_Why couldn’t I just have something good?_

Keith has no concept of how much time has passed, how long this has gone on. He’s fairly sure that at this point, he’s half delirious. Rick’s blows keep coming though, leaving him a mess of welts and blood, and bruises, crisscrossing across his side, and back, and legs, and ass, and arms.

It feels like he’s been lit on fire. Like that fire in his chest was growing out of control and ravaging his own body.

And as his mind floats into delirium, Keith finds himself distantly remembering a quote from one of the books his mother used to read to him.

Fire, it had said, will either burn you away, or remake you.

Keith wonders if this is his fire.

If it is, he’s fairly sure that by morning his ashes will have blown away with the wind.

And as this thought occurs to him, there is a pounding on the door upstairs and muffled shouting.

Rick’s blows finally come to a halt, and the man is panting as he turns his attention to the top of the basement stairs. Keith can almost _see_ the blood drain from his face as the red slowly leaves his vision.

Keith is lying on the floor, and he can’t get up, and everything hurts, and his vision is blurry, and everything feels hazy, and he just wants to curl up and sob until his mother comes and hugs him.

It sounds as if the door is busted open and Keith catches shouts of “Police!”, and he realizes faintly that Brent must have called the cops.

Brent is such a good friend.

Keith is kind of sorry that he’s going to die on him.

He had wanted to kiss the brunette boy again.

It had been nice.

Rick tries to run as he hears the sound of the cellar door being knocked down.

Keith isn’t really aware enough to know what happens next, but he screams when someone tries to touch him. He thinks they’re talking to him, but Keith can’t really make it out.

He wonders if they’re speaking Korean.

He really wishes he would have gotten the chance to finish learning Korean.

Maybe it’s his mom. His mom knew Korean.

And then he’s being picked up, despite his weak attempts at thrashing.

Keith doesn’t know what happened after that. He blacks out before they’re even up the stairs.

 

When Keith wakes it’s to a hospital bed and white white walls.

His first thought is about fire, and he wonders if this means he’s supposed to be stronger now.

He doesn’t feel stronger.

He feels tired and hollowed out.

Then there’s a nurse above him, who looks relieved, and she starts telling him things like ‘you’re going to be okay’ and ‘you’re safe now’ but Keith doesn’t really believe her.

She leaves the room and comes back with a doctor.

The doctor is leaning far too close to him as the nurse flutters about.

And the doctor says, “You’re a very lucky young man. We weren’t sure you were going to make it.”

The doctor explains to him that he has a concussion (on top of a sprained wrist, a torn ligament, and blood loss), and she says that most people would have had a cracked skull or snapped neck. But his is nothing more than split skin some internal bruising.

“You must have a very hard head,” the doctor says, smiling slightly.

But Keith doesn’t take to the joke, and simply turns his head into the pillow and tries not shake.

(He doubts he succeeds.)

He knows she’s trying to reassure him, comfort him, let him know that everything is going to be okay.

But it isn’t okay.

It _won’t_ be okay.

And he wishes that his head wasn’t so hard, and he wishes that he hadn’t woken up here.

He wishes he were ash.

 

They tell him that Yelma and Rick are being sent to prison, as if it’s supposed to make him feel better.

It doesn’t.

They explain that it had been Brent (and Bastion apparently) who had called the police to explain what happened.

After three days they tell him that he has blood poisoning, and that he will have to stay in the hospital longer than they originally anticipated.

They tell him he can’t stay here anymore.

After two weeks in the hospital, a social worker comes by and explains the situation to him. They apologize profusely for allowing this to happen again. They say that they would have never imagined the Albines to be violent. They say that they reached out to the Albines’ past foster children, who confirmed how controlling the two were after hearing Brent’s statement.

Keith is too tired to be angry. He doesn’t want to hear their apologies anymore.

They tell him he will be moved to a new place, with a new family. That his stuff has already been collected. They promise that this new family will be kinder, that they have been thoroughly vetted.

Keith doesn’t bother to protest.

When he is released from the hospital a few days later and a car picks him up, and Keith leaves the Albines, he realizes that the picture of his mother is gone.

He arrives at the McAlisters’ with only his mother’s jacket and his father’s dagger.

 

The McAlisters, to their credit, were incredibly kind. They reminded him a lot of the Taylors.

Kind and welcoming, but busy.

Keith finds that he can’t muster up any kind of relief at that.

There are nine other children in the house, ranging anywhere from four to seventeen. It’s crowded, but not uncomfortable. The McAlisters struggle to make time for each of their foster children, but they try their best.

Keith immediately feels out of place.

“We hope you’ll like it here, Keith,” Sara McAlister says as he sets his small bag down on the bed.

Keith doesn’t reply. He just keeps his eyes down and his lips drawn tight.

She isn’t deterred.

“Dinner is at seven. Feel free to rest for today. Tomorrow we’ll worry about getting you enrolled in school.”

He shares a room with two other boys. One that is about his age, and another a few years older. Keith ignores them.

And that’s how it goes for the first few weeks.

Keith operates on autopilot. He does what is expected of him, and nothing more. He eats breakfast and dinner at the table with everyone else. He goes to school. He wakes up from nightmares of pain, and violence, and void. He pretends to be sleeping. He lets Sara check over his homework as she does with all of the younger children.

There’s no cleaning for punishment. There’s no violence. There are no pushups. The only shouting he usually hears come from petty squabbles between siblings or excitable five year olds.

There don’t even seem to be many rules.

But he rarely ventures out of his new room, regardless. He doesn’t speak unless he has to. He doesn’t connect with anyone.

Keith is so tired.

He can’t find it in himself to bother anymore.

“You can talk to me, you know,” Sara says one day. “Or any of the older kids. I promise, we won’t judge you. You’re safe here.”

Keith just nods.

“Would you like to learn how to cook, Keith?” Michael, Sara’s husband, asks one time.

Keith shakes his head.

They both looked so sad.

But neither pressed.

And Keith just went back to his room.

There’s no black hole in his chest. There’s no fire. There are no flowers.

It feels like someone has taken a spoon to the inside of his chest.

No. More like someone had forced a match down his throat, and turned his own fire against him, causing it to burn out of control, until everything went up in smoke.

There’s just _nothing left_.

Not even fire.

Fire can’t exist without oxygen.

And Keith’s not sure he’s still breathing.

For those first three weeks Keith walks around like a charred husk. Existing, but only as a reminder of what had been before.

But the world doesn’t stop turning, and life doesn’t appear to care for lifeless husks. Because trouble finds him, regardless.

This time, it is in the form of three larger boys in his class.

“Hey, what was it like living with psychopaths?” a kid says to him one day during lunch.

Keith doesn’t answer.

“Come on,” another urges, “I know you can talk. So what’s up? You just too good for us or something?”

Keith just picks at his food.

The first boy grabs his tray and flings it off the table.

“Oops,” he says with a sneer. “Gonna ignore us now?”

Keith stands and tries to leave- only to get knocked onto the ground by the third boy.

He tries not to remember Rick standing above him and scrambling back wide eyed and pleading.

He just tries to stand.

He gets shoved.

“Don’t be rude,” the third boy says. “No one’s interested in joining your pity party, ya know.”

Keith just looks down at his shoes and stays on the ground.

“Hey!” The first one says, and reaches down to grab the back of Keith’s shirt. “We’re talking to yo-”

And, almost like his body is on autopilot, Keith’s fist catches the side of the guy’s ear.

The boy cries out and cradles his ear, hissing, “What the _fuck_?”

The other two boys reach for him, and something _visceral_ sparks inside Keith’s chest.

He ducks away from both of them, tripping one, and swinging the other by the arm, causing him to crash into the cafeteria bench.

It’s not as if it was a particularly long or even heated fight.

But suddenly, Keith feels like he can _breathe_ again. Like his lungs are pulling in oxygen once more.

It feels _good_ to fight back again, to know that he still can.

He ends up in the principal’s office.

Sara is there. She apologizes to the principal, but points out that the other boys had been harassing Keith first, and had started the fight.

She looks at him seriously and asks him, “Given Keith’s history, I think it’s understandable that he’d try to defend himself, don’t you?”

The man’s muscles seemed to twitch somewhat. “I- yes. But that does not mean-”

“So I’m sure,” Sara says, cutting him off calmly, “that a man of your intelligence and maturity can see the difference between _excusing_ a reaction and understanding it.”

The principal sighs. “Of course, ma’am.”

Keith inclines his head slightly, not sure what to make of his new foster mother. It’s… weird. Having someone stand up for him. It makes his newfound oxygen swirl in his chest, foreign, and uncomfortable, but light nonetheless. And he’s not sure how to feel about it.

He’s given three days detention. The other boys are temporarily suspended.

Keith finds that fair.

 

 

About a week later, Sara calls Keith over to the kitchen table when he walks in from school, saying, “Keith, you have a letter.”

Keith’s brow furrows in confusion, because he has no idea who would possibly be writing to him. He’d never gotten a letter before.

He took the white envelope, a bit curious against his better nature.

Brent’s name is written on the front.

Keith nearly drops it.

“What is it?” Sara asks.

But Keith just shakes his head and rushes up the stairs to his room, his thoughts going a mile a minute.

He hadn’t expected to hear from his friend again. Every time he left someplace there was just… silence. Like Keith had left behind a town full of ghosts.

And he had figured, that after everything that had happened, Brent would have just wanted to leave it all behind. Move on and acknowledge that Keith had just been a temporary fixture in his life, that he didn’t have to dwell on him any further.

Keith wouldn’t have held it against him.

After all, forgetting is easier.

He sits on his bed and opens the letter gingerly, and begins to read Brent’s sloppy handwriting.

                _Keith,_

_Man, you have no idea how long it took to get your new address out of those social service assholes. It took weeks to even reply to my first letter! And then they won’t even tell me a phone number for you or anything, so I’m stuck doing shit the old fashioned way._

_So. Hey. It’s been a while. I just really wanted to talk to you again. I haven’t gotten to see you since Rick went berserk. Shit, man, I’m so sorry that I ran. I should have stayed. I should have helped or something, I don’t know. I’m glad the police got there in time though. They told me you’d be okay, but they wouldn’t let me see you in the hospital at all, even when I begged to be let in._

_I hope you’re doing okay, and that wherever you are now is better than it was here. I hope you’re flying high around some race track there. Or at the very least found a good place to board._

_I know shit went sideways really fast for us, but I really want to see you again. I want to talk to you. I miss my best friend, dude._

_Maybe we can be pen pals or some shit? Or you could give me your number. That could make things easier._

_I hope I hear from you soon._

_Brent._

Keith feel his hands shake as he carefully folds the letter back up.

He doesn’t know _what_ he wants to do. Some part of him wants to reply as fast as possible, to accept the olive branch that Brent is offering without hesitation.

But his chest is empty and charred, and he _can’t_.

Besides. What had he ever brought for Brent besides trouble?

No… Brent would be better off without him.

Just like everyone else.

That had been proven time and time again.

He shoves the letter into the bottom of his bag and leaves it there.

 

 

It’s only a few days after this that Keith is waiting in the living room as everyone else prepares for the school day.

Everything is chaotic. Breakfast is usually a bit of an ordeal, since it is less organized than dinner and everyone is also preoccupied with getting ready for the day (or simply waking up, like Keith’s roommates). With eleven people the kitchen can feel like a bit of a mess.

That morning however, Bailen, Keith’s youngest foster brother, had contracted some kind of stomach virus.

Meaning Sara is more scattered than usual.

Keith is content to simply wait on the couch until it was time for his bus to come, and stay out of the way.

That is, until Hailey, his six year old foster sister, marches up to him and shoves a brush into his hands, demanding he braid her hair.

“Um, why me?” Keith asks, looking between the small blonde girl and the brush in confusion.

“It’s picture day at school. Miss Sara promised to braid my hair but she’s too busy.” She points at him. “But _you_ have a braid. So you can braid my hair!”

And, well, Hailey isn’t _wrong_. Keith had been letting his hair grow out. The Albines typically made him cut it once it got to a certain length, but since he had left their home it had grown longer and he had taken to sweeping it back in some way.

Keith honestly preferred it that way. His mom had always had long hair, and he remembers loving how it looked. She had always said that she loved his hair longer, and would sit him down in front of the TV to brush it.

When he was younger he used to demand that he be allowed to brush hers as well, and would switch places with her, scrambling up onto the couch as she sat on the floor. He had always wished his hair was more like his mothers. While his was thick and unruly, hers had been silky and shiny. He had loved brushing it.

She taught him how to braid it, under, over, etc. It had been fun. It wasn’t until Keith was older that he even realized that it wasn’t a skill everyone had.

He had thought he might have forgotten how to braid after so many years, but as it turned out, it was like riding a bike. You never really forget.

So he had taken to braiding his hair in the past week or so. It wasn’t long or anything magnificent. But it got the job done.

(And if it helped in hiding some of the scars left from Bailey or Rick… well that was no one’s business but his.)

So technically speaking, he _could_ braid someone else’s hair. But…

“What about Ellie?” he tries weakly.

“Ellie already left for practice,” Hailey says, and shoves the hairbrush towards him again.

Keith looks down, and tries to think of how to tell her no. But she’s looking up at him with big, watery blue eyes and…

Keith sighs. “Alright. I’ll give it a try.”

“Yay!” Hailey squeals and grabs one of the couch pillows, dragging it onto the ground before plopping down on top of it in front of Keith. “Braid, braid, braid!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Keith says as he begins to brush through her hair.

He tries to be careful not to pull her hair, and takes a bit more time to braid it than he would his own in order to ensure it looked neat and clean and would stay most of the day.

As soon as he ties it off, Hailey is bounding over to the nearest mirror before he can even finish saying, “Okay-”

He’s actually kind of nervous. Which is ridiculous. It isn’t like a six year old’s opinion of his braiding skills meant much.

But then the little blonde girl squeals, turning to him and throwing her tiny arms around his waist.

“It’s perfect! Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

Keith just barely manages to stop himself from flinching at the sudden contact, and blinks down at her in surprise. “Oh uh… you’re welcome?”

“Now _you_ can braid my hair from now on!” Hailey cries in delight before skipping off.

Keith just stands there, staring at the spot where she had been, still trying to process what had just happened.

And Keith feels… something. Something tingling at the tips of his fingers and toes, something that makes the back of his neck itch a bit. He doesn’t know how to describe it. But he doesn’t think it’s unpleasant.

After that Hailey almost always demands that it be Keith who braids her hair.

Keith tries not to feel too pleased about that.

 

Keith realizes something about himself only a week after that.

There is a student a year or two older than them who is blocking the path of a skittish girl in Keith’s grade. Every time the girl tries to move past, the other one pushes her back.

“Oh what’s wrong little baby, going to cry,” the older girl mocks.

And the younger does, in fact, look like she might burst into tears.

And Keith- honestly hadn’t been paying them much attention. He had minded his own, and only looked up out of the corner of his eye occasionally.

But as he’s passing them in the hallway, and hears this, something triggers in his mind, and the next thing he knows, he’s deviated from his path to class and is striding towards them.

Keith still doesn’t know what has taken over him when he yells, “Hey!” catching the two girls’ attention.

“What do you want?” The older girl scoffs.

“Leave her alone,” Keith demands, stepping into her space.

-And he wonders what he’s doing. And why he’s doing this? He doesn’t really care about this girl, doesn’t know her, so… why is he picking a fight here?

But the younger girl is watching them with wide, watery eyes, and Keith feels something spark in his chest, like two pieces of flint striking one another.

The older girl sneers at him and shoves him back. Keith is prepared for it however, and is only moved a few paces.

“Why don’t you mind your own business?” she says.

“Why don’t you _leave_?” he retorts.

This time when she goes to shove him again, Keith steps out of the way, causing the girl to stumble slightly, and pushes her from behind.

She falls to the ground with a cry.

“No one likes a bully,” Keith tells her.

The girl lunges at him with a cry and Keith is forced to move quickly to avoid being hit. He manages to dodge the girl’s upper hook, and kicks out, catching her knees.

She topples again, but still doesn’t stay down.

However, this time, Keith is brought down as she full on _tackles_ him.

It’s difficult because neither of them at that point are really even fighting, it’s more like scrambling desperately to land any kind of hit on the other, as they each try to push the other off of them

And for a moment Keith feels a bit more like himself again. That visceral tug in his chest, and heat all sparking together.

He realizes that whatever was awoken in him, or whatever was developing, as much more primal than before. It’s the moment he had thrown that beer bottle personified.

The fight doesn’t progress much further however, as the older girl is ripped off of him by a teacher only moments afterwards.

Sara is called to the principal’s office again, and this time she looks more troubled.

“I don’t want this becoming a pattern, Mrs.McAlister,” the man says, and his foster mother nods.

Keith sits in the car and waits to be chided by her.

He does genuinely feel bad that this is the second time Sara has had to be called away from work on his behalf.

He doesn’t regret the fight.

“Keith,” the woman begins, and Ketih braces himself, “I don’t approve of fighting or violence. I never will. It’s one thing to react, and another to purposefully engage another student.” She pauses. “That being said… I am proud of you.”

Keith’s head snaps up so quick it made him dizzy. “What?”

She smiles at him. “You stood up for someone being mistreated. It’s not a bad thing to defend others. It’s actually a very admirable trait.”

Keith gapes at her.

Her eyes turn serious again however as she says, “But perhaps next time, get a teacher?”

Keith nods dumbly, and Sara ruffles his hair.

 

Keith is given lunch detention for the fight. Five days’ worth. He’s not too torn up about it if he’s honest. There’s no Brent to sit with under a tree, so it’s not like it matters.

That thought pulls something uncomfortable in his stomach, but he doesn’t dwell on it.

The detentions, as it turns out, are pretty uneventful.

There is a teacher there, who looks bored out of their minds, swiping away on their phone as they eat some awful microwavable meal. It’s quiet and boring, and Keith is perfectly content with that.

Keith is the only student, until the third day, and a girl with dark hair flounces in and takes the seat beside him. Keith frowns, but does his best to ignore her.

She doesn’t seem to take the hint.

She says, “Hey, I’m Mel.”

Keith doesn’t reply.

“What are you in for?” she tries again.

And for a moment, Keith imagines a world where he replies. Where he talks to this girl, and maybe even makes a friend. He imagines it, and it feels like an empty promise.

There’s no point in getting attached to someone just to have to leave again.

Besides. If there was one thing his friendship with Brent had proved, it’s that Keith is poisonous.  Awful things were going to follow him wherever he went. The less people he cares about then, the better.

(And the awful thought occurs to him that perhaps this isn’t a new development. Maybe it had been this way since the beginning. Maybe this is why his mother was gone.)

So instead of replying Keith grabs his backpack and lunch and goes to sit on other side of the room.

He can hear the girl saying, “Wow, rude,” under her breath, but he refuses to care.

There isn’t supposed to be any talking in detention anyway.

 

Things slowly seem to get… better? Maybe? It’s hard to tell.

There’s oxygen in his lungs, and there are occasionally sparks in his chest, and there’s something new and visceral sitting in his chest but Keith doesn’t know what or where it is.

There’s no fire.

Keith can’t figure out if he misses it.

But he’s feeling again. Not as much as he was. But it’s something.

And he’s talking again. Somewhat.

He no longer feels charred, but there’s something still empty and raw to him.

And honestly… Keith doesn’t know if he _wants_ things to go back to normal.

Normal has only ever lead him to getting attached, to getting hurt.

To getting burned.

Besides, isn’t he supposed to change after everything that had happened?

But the emptiness just leaves an ache. And the sparks just leave impressions of what was.

There’s no good answer.

But as Keith slowly seems to reacclimatize to life, he finds something else that’s resurfaced.

The _itch_. The itch and visceral _need_ to fly, to have the wind in his face, the swoop of his stomach.

The longer he goes, the more he feels, the more pressing and urgent that itch becomes.

And Keith thinks of Brent’s letter.

And he thinks of the race track.

And maybe, just maybe, he has a chance.

 

There’s a kid named Jeremy that everyone says to stay away from. He’s a few years older than Keith, but only a grade above.

Kids will whisper that if you want something not so legal, Jeremy is the place to go.

So during lunch one day, Keith goes out to the side of the school where Jeremy os known to skulk around. He’s not entirely sure what he’s expecting to get out of this but… he just needs to know. It’s itching under his skin, like a scab that only gets worse instead of better as time goes on.

“What do you want, kid?” Jeremy asks when Keith stops in front of the older boy. He has a cigarette in hand, and looks somewhere between mildly amused and disinterested.

“I- I wanted to… do you uh- do you know anything about… races around here?” Keith asks, cringing at his own uncertainty and the cracks in his voice.

“Races?” Jeremy asks, incredulous.

“Yeah-um, hover craft races?”

Why is he doing this? This had been a terrible idea…

“Hover craft races,” Jeremy says blandly. “You know those are illegal, right?”

Keith looks pointedly to the other boy’s cigarette.

Jeremy smirks. “You got me there.” He takes one last long drag on his cig before tossing it on the ground and crushing it with the heel of his ratty brown sneakers. “What do you got for me if I tell you anything?”

Keith starts a bit at that. What does he ‘have’ for him…?

“I don’t have anything. I just figured that you might- you know- know?”

“Sure,” Jeremy says dismissively. “But what’s in it for me? I mean I am passing along illegal information, after all. I could get in trouble for that. So what makes it worth my while?”

Keith frowns and looks down at the ground. “I-uh, I don’t know. What do you want?”

“A blow job and a Snickers would be nice,” the older boy says, snickering.

Keith feels the blood drain from his face and takes a step back, something black and ugly settling itself in his stomach.

Luckily though, Jeremy seems to notice his discomfort almost immediately.

“Ah, shit. Sorry, kid, I forget sometimes how young the rest of you are,” Jeremy says. And he looks almost regretful. “Look, I’m not even one for favors like that anyway. If I went around letting everyone who bought weed off me suck me off when they didn’t have cash, I’d be out of a job.” Jeremy seems to pause, considering him, and Keith is still very ready to bolt. “I’ll tell you what. I give you an address, and in return, you owe me one. Okay?”

“One… what?” Keith asks cautiously.

The older boy seems exasperated. “One chupacabra, what do you think? One _favor_.”

Keith watches the boy warily. “Okay, but what _kind_ of favor?”

Jeremy shrugs. “Don’t know. Don’t know what I might want yet. But when I need a small chink, I’ll let you know.”

Keith grits his teeth. “I’m _Korean_ ,” he spits.

The boy barely glances at him. “There’s a difference?” He shrugs. “Whatever. Point is I’ll call you when your numbers up, alright?”

“But if I don’t know what the favor is, then how will I know if I should say yes?” Keith asks.

“You don’t,” Jeremy says simply. “Depends on you if you want to take that risk.”

Keith pauses, glaring down at his shoes. He wants to chance to fly again, more than anything. But he doesn’t like the idea of owing someone something. Especially when he didn’t know what that _something_ could entail.

Then again… it wasn’t like Jeremy would ask anything too extreme of him… right? The older boy wasn’t into anything _dangerous_ as far as Keith knew. Just illegal.

The logical part of his brain is screaming at him, telling him to just walk away.

But every single nerve in his body is thrumming at the chance to fly again.

“Okay, deal,” Keith says.

Jeremy smiles, lopsided, and it reminds Keith of a shark. “Boul Valcartier, end of the Old Lepire Rue.”

With that he began to walk away.

“Wait!” Keith calls after him. “How am I supposed to get there?”

“That’s for you to figure out, Snickers,” the older boy says over his shoulder, waving nonchalantly. “Good luck!”

 

In the end it takes two buses and a half mile hike to get to the old dirt road

At first, when Keith reaches the end of the road, he thinks he’s been lied to. There’s nothing there. Just a roundabout surrounded by forest.

Then he hears it.

There’s shouting in the distance. And just under that he can make out the roar of engines and pounding music. Keith is hesitant to leave the path in the middle of the night, but he refuses to give up after coming this far.

Keith pulls out his torch and carefully searches for some kind of trodden path. Eventually, he finds one, hidden behind several bushes and well placed branches. Within minutes the trail becomes more worn, the sounds become louder, and Keith can see light in the distance.

When Keith steps out of the forest, the lights blind him for a moment and the sounds are overwhelming.

But as the spots from his vision clear, Keith feels something seize up in his chest.

The track is nothing like the one back in the Albines’ town. It’s not small and simple.

No.

The entire track is carved out in a _canyon_.

It reminds him of _home_ , back when his mother was first teaching him to fly.

Except this place isn’t a quiet oasis. It’s more like a bustling metropolis.

The lights are nearly blinding and somehow light up the whole canyon, there are people crowded around the edge of makeshift railing, cheering on whoever is racing currently, and there is a large sound system set up around a DJ booth, as well as what looks to be several kegs of beer off to the side.

It’s loud, it’s bright, and it’s scary.

But Keith is _thrilled_.

For the first time since he had come to live with the McAlisters, Keith is _excited_.

He runs to the ledge of the canyon, and he can see the bikes flying around the track, swerving across hurtles, jumping lips. It’s incredible.

Then he’s being pulled away.

“Hey, kid!”

There’s a tall woman behind him who appears to be in her early twenties, and grabs him by the scruff of his neck.

“What the hell are you doing here?” she demands.

Keith has to stop himself from squeaking in fear, and instead tries to pry away from her grip.

It doesn’t really work.

“I was told this is where to go if I want to race,” Keith says.

The woman stares at him for a moment, and then dissolves into laughter.

“Race?” She cackles. “ _You_? Want to _race_?” It takes her a moment to calm down. But when she does, she says, “No way in hell, kid.”

Keith makes a distressed noise in the back of his throat. “I just- I just want to ride. I don’t really care about racing. I just-”

The woman is shaking her head. “No dice. We only do races here, no recreational shit. If you want to play paddycake somewhere, do it on your own time not mine. Besides,” her expression hardens, “this isn’t any place for a kid.”

She hauls him along, and shoves him back towards the path. “Now run along.”

But Keith just pivots on the spot, and grabs onto her wrist.

“No!” he says forcibly. “I came out here to fly. That’s what I’m going to do.”

The woman’s eyes darken. “I _said_ get the hell out of here.”

“Why?” Keith asks. “Why can’t I fly? It’s not like anyone _here_ has a license. What’s it matter if I’m here too?”

The woman snorts. “I got a conscience, that’s what it matters.”

Keith looks up at her pleadingly. “Please- I-I just, I _need_ to do this. Please give me a chance.”

The woman stares at him for a long moment, and then sighs.

“Fine,” she says, clearly annoyed. “You want to race here? _Fine_. But this is on _you_ kid. I’m not gonna hold myself responsible for someone else’s stupidity. But I better not see you anywhere _near_ the beer table, you got me?”

Keith nods quickly. “Yes, I promise, I promise!”

“Good.” Then her expression turns haughty. “Then I hope you’re prepared to cough up the cash. Racing ain’t for free.”

Keith blinks up at her. “Uh- it’s not?”

She shakes her head. “Nope!” she says, popping the p. “Races are for winnings. Everyone pools in fifty dollars. Whoever wins goes home with seventy five percent of the lot.”

Keith feels his stomach sink. “I- I don’t have fifty dollars,” he admits.

She shrugs. “Not my problem.”

And then she’s gone in the flurry of people, not even looking back at the kid left at the edge of the forest.

Keith feels devastated.

He was so _close_ and now-

He doesn’t have that kind of money. Not only does he not have it _now_ , but he has no idea how he’s supposed to continue racing if it costs so much each time.

He can’t race tonight. That much is clear.

He tries to watch for a bit, see the wonder in all of the movements. But it feels heavier now. Melancholy.

Eventually he trudges back to the path, and walks the half mile to the bus stop.

When he enters his room it’s 2 a.m., and Terry, Keith’s fourteen-year-old foster brother looks up at him in surprise.

“What are you doing back so late?” the other boy asks.

“Nothing,” Keith says, collapsing into bed and pulling the covers up over his head. He can’t even be bothered to change out of his day clothes.

In his head he’s spinning the question around and around like a depressing cycle- How is he supposed to get fifty dollars?

 

The solution comes to him three days later.

And Keith hates himself for it.

He’s in Sara’s closet, helping her move some things into the garage, when he notices her jewelry box.

While she’s out of the room he peaks inside, and moves some of the pieces around aimlessly. They’re shiny and he’s bored is ultimately what it comes down to.

But then his fingers brush across something shimmering and blue, and Keith stops to pick up the small earrings.

They’re blue crystals that hang off of a beautiful pearl. Keith hasn’t ever known anyone who owned something so nice. His own mother hadn’t ever been one for jewelry.

(If Yelma owned anything that looked this expensive, Keith had never seen it.)

He doesn’t hear Sara come back in.

“Oh,” she says, and Keith whirls around in surprise, feeling oddly guilty. “I see you found some of my grandmother’s stuff.”

Keith tries to ignore how his face heats up, and instead stammers out, “Um, sorry. I was just looking. They’re, uh, pretty?”

Sara gives a slight laugh. “Thank you, Keith. I’m actually not much for jewelry personally, but back before she passed my grandmother gave me nearly her entire trove.”

Keith lifts the earrings up again, examining them a bit closer. “So she just… gave you all this stuff?”

“Most of it, yes,” Sara says. “You know those are actually real sapphires.”

Keith’s eyebrows shoot up and he scrambles to quickly put them back in their place. “Uh- Sorry I didn’t know-”

She holds up a hand. “No, no, don’t worry about it. I almost never wear them. Honestly, I find them a bit gaudy.”

Cautiously, Keith asks, “So why keep them? I mean… you could probably sell this stuff.”

Sara hums as she began working around the closet again. Keith follows her, ready to carry or move whatever she asked.

“Nostalgia’s sake I suppose. I just can’t bring myself to get rid of them if I’m entirely honest with you,” she says.

Keith nods.

But even as he helps Sara with the rest of her organizing the gears in his mind are going at a hundred miles an hour.

In all honesty, he’s not really sure what a sapphire costs. But he images that two of them have to be worth something. At least fifty dollars… right?

And Keith hates himself for thinking it. He may not want to be there, but Sara has always been kind to him and his foster siblings, which is more than he could say for his past few homes. She doesn’t deserve to have him and his problems weighing her down, and she certainly doesn’t deserve to have him _steal_ one of her grandmother’s possessions from her.

But then again… Sara had said that she doesn’t wear them. That the only reason she kept them for nostalgia… it’s not like they’d really be _missed_ …

Keith agonizes over the thought for four days.

But the itch under his skin is becoming unbearable.

And he doesn’t know what else to do.

So during dinner, when he knows the entire family is down at the table, he excuses himself to the bathroom and goes upstairs. And quickly and quietly as possible he slips into Michael and Sara’s room, careful not to bump into anything, leaving the lights off as he reaches their closet. He keeps an ear out as he opens her jewelry box and hunts for the sapphire earrings. They are buried behind quite a few other pieces. Keith quickly slips them into his pocket and is careful to move the rest of the jewelry back to their previous positions.

Hopefully no one would be able to tell.

Keith closes everything back up the way he found it and slips back out into the hallway. He makes a show of flushing the toilet upstairs and washing his hands before going back down to the dinner table.

The entire next day Keith feels like he’s walking around with ten pound weights in his pocket. He’s skittish, nervous, and can’t help but feel _dirty_.

But he refuses to back out now.

He hasn’t put much thought into how he would sell the earrings however. A part of him feels like it should be easy… but he isn’t so sure.

He decides that he should maybe start with Jeremy first.

“Heeeeey,” Jeremy said when he sees Keith, “it’s Speed Racer! How’s it going? Flying with the big leagues yet?”

Keith ignores him, instead jumping straight to the point and asking, “If I wanted to sell something, would I go to you?”

Jeremy cocks a brow. “Is it weed?”

Keith shakes his head.

“Then no,” the other boy says.

Keith makes a disgruntled noise and digs the earrings out of his pocket.

“Look,” Keith demands. “These are real sapphire. They could probably get you a lot of money if you tried to sell them off to someone.”

Jeremy’s brows shot up at that, and the older boy took a moment to appraise the earrings and let out an impressed whistle.

“Damn, Snickers. You aren’t playing around.” But the boy still shakes his head. “I don’t have any use for pretty diamonds though. Wouldn’t really impress my kinda buyers.”

Keith’s expression falls and he puts the earrings back in his pocket. “Do you know anyone who would be willing to buy then?”

Jeremy seems to consider for a moment. “Yeah,” he says slowly, “I think I know a guy. Dylan down by Fifth Rue. He hangs in the alley between Frenchie’s and the corner store most days after five. I know he’ll dish out shiny items every now and then. Probably would be interested in buying them.” Jeremy shrugs. “Worth a shot?”

Keith feels relief wash over him. “Dylan on fifth, between Frenchie’s and the corner store. Thanks Jeremy.”

“No problem, kid,” Jeremy says. “But I’m putting this on your tab. You owe me two now!”

Keith glances back at him, wanting to challenge that. But instead he just nods and heads back to class.

“And hey! Feel free to come visit me anytime you decide to be a normal kid and just want some weed!” the older boy calls after him.

Keith doesn’t bother answering.

Later that day Keith tells his foster siblings that he’ll be home later and hops on a bus to Fifth Rue.

He’s not even sure if this supposed Dylan person is going to be there today, but it’s worth a shot.

He gets there a quarter past four, and waits on the curb of the convenient store next to Frenchie’s.

Keith tries to calm down his buzzing nerves and _not_ talk himself out of going through with this.

He has no idea who this guy is, if he should even be _meeting_ with them, much less making any kind of deal with him. But…selling earrings has to be pretty harmless…right?

Thirty minutes later there’s a group of guys who stroll down the street, talking and laughing loudly.

Keith only watches them with mild interest until they turn down the alley next to him. He feels his chest clench.

That has to be them, right?

He waits a few moments, takes a deep breath, and then follows the older boys into the alleyway.

They’re still there, leaning against the side of the building.

Keith clears his throat nervously and they all turn to look at him.

They can’t be more than fifteen or sixteen at most. But they’re still intimidating.

“The fuck you want?” one of them asks.

“I’m, uh, looking for Dylan?” Keith asks, trying to keep his voice from wavering.

The boys glance at each other.

“Who wants to know?” another demands.

“Um,” Keith glances down, confused by the question, before looking back up at them, “…me?”

The five of them snicker.

“You’re funny kid,” one of them chortles, “but that’s not what I meant. Why do ya want Dylan?”

Keith shifts from foot to foot. “I have something to sell. I was told that he might be able to help me?”

“ _Who_ told you?” the first one asks, eyes narrowed.

“Jeremy,” Keith says, brow furrowing, unsure if they would know him by a first name basis.

“Oh, that snake? For real?” another sneers. “Look kid, sorry, but tell Jere we’re still not interested in buying any of his crap.”

Keith shakes his head quickly. “What? No, I’m- I’m not here for him. I- I just asked where I could sell something like- jewelry or some shit. And he said to go here and ask Dylan.”

Finally, the first kid steps up. “Alright, kid, I’ll bite. I’m Dylan. What’ve you got?”

Keith sizes up the larger boy in front of him carefully. After a moment he answers, “A pair of sapphire and pearl earrings. All real.”

Dylan looks vaguely amused. “Real, huh? How can I trust that? You could scam me, you know.”

Keith’s brow furrows. He hadn’t considered that.

“I don’t know,” he answers honestly. “I don’t know how to tell the difference. But the person who I- who gave them to me, said they were real. And it’s not like they’d have any reason to lie, so?”

“Give em’ here,” Dylan says, holding out his hand.

Keith takes out one of the earrings, and hands it over cautiously.

“You only got one?” the teen asks.

“No,” Keith says, crossing his arms, “but you can see the other one when you actually decide to _buy_ them.”

Dylan gives a huff of laughter. “Smart kid.”

He takes a moment examining the earring, holding it up to the light and handing it over to a darker haired boy to have a second look.

“Can’t say for sure,” the second one admits, “but it definitely looks legit.”

Dylan nods and seems to consider Keith for a long moment.

“Okay, kid,” Dylan says, “that’s a decent find. How about seventy bucks?”

Keith shakes his head. “A hundred,” he says firmly.

Dylan frowns. “You want a hundred bucks for these little things?”

“I did my research,” Keith retorts, glaring up at him. “Those could potentially go for hundreds of dollars. A hundred isn’t that big a cut.”

“ _Potentially_ ,” the other boy stresses. “That’s no guarantee.”

Keith crosses his arms. “If you get less than a hundred sixty for those then you’re terrible at your job.”

Dylan actually barks out a surprised laugh at that.

“Well aren’t you blunt,” the other boy says, smiling as he still examines the earring in his hand. “Might want to be careful around here with that kind of attitude.”

Keith doesn’t reply and just waits.

“Alright, a hundred,” Dylan agrees, but then looks back to Keith, warning, “But if I find out that you played me kid, it won’t end well for you. I promise.”

Keith nods hesitantly, ignoring how every instinct was screaming for him to just grab the earring and _run_.

“Deal,” he says.

He hands over the other earring and gets the hundred dollars in return.

He expects his heart to soar, but it doesn’t. He feels unclean and awful, like he might be sick.

But that same itch is screaming at him.

“Pleasure doing business with you, kid,” Dylan says with a wink.

Keith walks out of the alley, then runs all the way back to the bus stop.

 

He only gives it two days after that before he returns to the race track.

This time he marches directly over to the dark haired woman and thrusts out the money.

“Fifty dollars,” Keith says, and he can’t help but feel somewhat satisfied when she actually looks surprised.

After a moment of silence she gives a short laugh. “Well then. I guess I was wrong about you, kid.”

She takes the money from him and turns to the man standing next to her, having a short conversation with him.

When she turns her attention back to Keith she says, “Alright then, little man. You’re in tonight’s race. I’m guessing you don’t have your own bike?”

Keith shook his head.

“Then there are extras down by the track. I’m warning you though, you ruin it, then you’re responsible for replacing it,” she says. “The rules are simple enough. Ten times around the track. First one over wins. No sabotaging, no fancy tech shit, and no intentionally hurting anyone. We aren’t going to risk shit by having an ambulance coming down here.”

She gives him a good long look, saying under her breath, “I can’t believe I’m allowing this.” Then she sighs. “Next race is in thirty. Be ready. If you back out, money’s still ours.”

Keith nods enthusiastically, and practically tears down to the start of the track, where the hover bikes were held.

Keith feels that visceral, dormant part of him rustling in his chest.

At the moment there are people clearing the track that are most likely going to be used for the next race. Everyone is mostly milling about during the time in between.

He can hear some people whispering and a few snickers around him. He feels eyes on his back. He knows he’s being watched. Stared at. Mocked. But he can’t bring himself to care.

He’s _finally_ going to have the chance to fly again.

When he asks the bike handler for a craft they look at him strangely. But when the man looks up to presumably check with the dark haired woman, Keith assumes he gets the go ahead, as he just shrugs and pulls a smaller bike away from the docks.

“Best of luck, champ,” the man says.

Before he knows it they’re calling for racers to line up. The other seven pilots shoot him odd looks out of the corner of their eye, but don’t really say anything.

He’s not a threat to them as far as they’re concerned.

Keith can’t really find it within himself to be nervous.

Because suddenly, he feels like he’s six years old again, and his mother is offering to let him fly for the first time. He feels excited, but apprehensive.

It takes him a moment to place _why_ though.

He’s not nervous about the race, and he’s not afraid he’ll crash or anything.

But he thinks about the blossoming sunflower in his chest, the heat in his bones, and Keith- he doesn’t know if he wants that back. It feels like a betrayal of some kind.

Being empty and raw… it hurts. But Keith doesn’t know if he could bear gaining everything back if it will just be taken from him again.

And for a moment-he almost doesn’t mount the bike. Too afraid of what he could lose in the long run.

But then there’s something, loud and instinctive, saying, _This time will be different_.

So Keith takes a deep breath, let’s his eyes snap open and focus in, and gets ready to race.

As soon as the signal sounds, Keith is _flying_.

Keith is flying fast and hard, and like so many years ago, the world _opens_. The wind is whipping past him, the stars ae above him, and it feels like he’s taking his first fresh breath, not choked in ash or smoke, in months.

And as the adrenaline rushes through him, that same visceral feeling _roars_ to life inside of him, and _ignites_ him.

It’s not a flower in bloom, and it’s not a fire that starts in his chest.

As those directionless sparks finally ignite, Keith doesn’t feel the fire form around his chest. No, he feels the fire race from his _fingertips_. They actually tingle from the sensation, racing up his arms, into his chest, down to his toes and up to the tips of his ears.

It’s not under his skin, in that moment, it _is_ his skin. Keith feels as if he’s become fire itself, volatile, fast, burning… but never to be burnt. Never again.

And with the wind in his face, and the fire roaring, Keith feels like he’s been born anew. Every nerve is bright and flaring.

For the first time since he had been placed in the hospital, Keith feels _alive_. His whole body is not buzzing, but _blazing_ with _energy_ and _emotion_.

And he understands in that moment- he’ll never allow himself to be left hallow again. This time, if he goes out, he extinguishes completely.

Whatever visceral part of him which seems to have awakened settles comfortably in the new fire, still roaring in his ears however as Keith makes the sharp turn and passes out several of the other competitors.

The jerk of the handles, the jumps and obstacles make Keith’s breath catch in his throat.

It’s _exhilarating_.

Keith crosses the finish line.

Up until that point he had been completely lost in himself, perspective only narrowed to flying, the fire, and the track.

He realizes a bit belatedly that he has come in third in the race, only a hair behind the second place.

As he pulls his hover craft to a quick stop, he notices just _how many_ eyes are on him.

The other two riders are staring at him unabashedly.

The fourth, as he takes his helmet off after crossing the finish line, says not so quietly, “What the fuck, man?”

Keith doesn’t know what to feel.

He’s a bit disappointed. But then again, he hadn’t been here to win, he’s a bit out of practice, and he’s only ever raced once before.

He isn’t too torn up about it.

And he’s still riding the high of his newly reinvigorated fire.

He shrugs off the stares and begins walking his bike back to the docking area. However, halfway up the canyon, something occurs to him.

If he wants to race again he’ll have to continue paying. And sure he has another fifty that he can use, but that would only get him one more race. He can’t afford another after that.

His stomach is suddenly tying itself and nots.

And oh- he had forgotten just _how much_ he could feel. He had gotten so used to the muted sensations and emotions over the last couple of months that the sudden emotional distress feels that much more _intense_.

This is going to take some getting used to again.

But how is he supposed to keep flying if he can’t afford to race?

He would have to sell something again… and _keep_ doing it. Until he won.

But he _can’t_ steal from the McAlisters again. He doesn’t think he could live with himself.

He _needs_ to be good enough, Keith realizes with a sinking stomach. He needs to be good enough to _win_.

As he walks away, Keith feels his shoulders slouch, and his bangs fall into his face.

He almost doesn’t notice when he nearly runs into someone.

He looks up, apology already half out of his mouth, when he realizes it’s the dark haired woman, glaring down at him with her arms crossed.

Keith can’t help but gulp. He doesn’t really think she’ll hurt him but… the tall woman is admittedly intimidating.

“Uh,” Keith says, staring blankly.

“What. The _hell_. Was _that_?” the woman grinds out.

Keith takes a slight step back, bringing his arms up defensively. “I don’t know what you mean,” he says.

“ _That_ ,” she bites out, pointing to the canyon, “that, down there, on the track. What- what the hell _was_ that?”

Keith mentally tries to go over the list of rules she had given him. He didn’t think he had broken any…

He frowns. “Did I do something wrong?”

She stares at him, and seemingly out of the blue asks, “How old are you?”

Keith reels a bit at the sudden change of topic, but answers, “Um… eleven?”

“Eleven,” she mutters, shaking her head. “For _fuck’s_ sake.”

It seems to take her a moment to regain her composure. “Okay, kid, why don’t you tell me how the hell an eleven year old learns to fly like that?”

Keith blinks. “I’ve just- flown before? At a race track in Beauport, and…” he trails off for a moment. “My mom taught me some. When I was younger. She was a pilot.”

The woman’s dark eyes narrow. “You’ve raced before?”

Keith shakes his head. “Not really? I raced one time, but only with one other person. I just- I like flying.”

“Like flying,” she huffs. “Yeah, sure.”

Keith, finally getting a bit annoyed, snaps, “Look, do you want something? I don’t know what I did, but you can either tell me or leave me alone.”

The woman just raises a brow at his outburst. “Keep your pants on junior,” she says, but glances away from him, muttering, “Fuck, I can’t believe this.”

When she turns to face him again, she says seriously, “You’re a good flyer. I don’t really know how, but- _fuck_. I didn’t think you actually _knew_ jack shit about hover bikes.”

Keith’s brows draw down in consternation. “But I didn’t win? I came in third.”

“ _So_?!” the woman says. “Most of the people on that track have been around for years, and have won their fair share of races. And, fuck, kid, you’re _elven years old_ with almost _no_ formal training. If this is what you’re like raw, I can’t imagine- no wait, I definitely can imagine- just how good you can be.”

Keith’s eyes widen a bit at the unexpected praise. “I- really?”

She nods.

Something like pride flairs up in his chest, but he tries to squash it.

He can’t fly like he wants.

“Thank you,” he murmurs, “but it doesn’t mean much. I can only really afford one other race, and I- I’m not good enough to win as is. So.”

The woman’s eyes narrow, and she considers him for a long moment.

Keith almost demands that she either say something or let him pass, when finally, she asks, “You want a teacher?”

And that throws him for a loop.

“Do I want- what?”

“A teacher,” she repeats slowly, as if Keith is dense. “Do you want to learn how to fly and win?”

Keith stares up at her. “I mean, yes, but-”

“Good,” she cuts him off. “Then you’ve got one.”

“You mean, you’ll-”

“Teach you and shit, yeah,” she says.

Keith stares up at her, caught between awe and utter bewilderment.

“But- why?”

She sighs. “Here’s the deal I got for you kid. I teach you, in return, you race, and I get fifty percent of your cut if you win. If I don’t see you getting any better or see you racing, then deal’s over. Got it?”

Keith is nodding before he could even fully register it. “I- yes, yes, absolutely!”

“Good,” she says, and meets his gaze dead on. “Come by here in the afternoon, after you get out of school or whatever the fuck it is, next Tuesday. We start then.”

Keith feels like he could _soar_.

 

The next day however, he questions himself.

He doesn’t even know the woman’s name, much less how reliable she might be.

And he would be out there _alone_. With a complete stranger.

But he wants to learn. He wants to learn more about flying so badly he feels like every atom of his body is vibrating with anticipation.

In the end he only bothers to tell Terry that he’s going over a friend’s place, and that he should be back before dinner.

Terry simply inclines his head (probably a bit thrown off by Keith offering up the information) and asks, “And if you’re not?”

“Uh, maybe be worried?” Keith suggests, then runs off before the other boy could ask any other questions.

When Keith gets to the race track it looks vastly different from how it did at night.

The stereo system and tables had either been moved or put away in the unassuming storage shed, as had most of the lights. The docking bay for the hover bikes apparently operated a bit like a garage, as a shed door had been pulled down to cover what was inside. And most importantly, there are no people.

As it stood the place looks like an unassuming canyon.

The woman steps out from the small house where the ‘business’ side of things seem to be run.

“So you showed up,” she says, satisfied. “Alright then.”

Keith’s brow furrows. “You thought I’d bail?”

She shrugs. “Wasn’t sure. Now get your scrawny ass over here, we’ve got some things to discuss.”

Keith finds out that her name is Rowan, and there are a lot more rules for _learning_ to fly than there are in racing. Listen to her instructions to the letter, do not try anything she hasn’t okayed first, if he needs a break or had a concern he is to tell her immediately, no complaining otherwise, and they have to be done before seven as that’s when the track starts getting set up all over again.

“Are we clear, kid?” Rowan asks.

Keith nods. “I think so, yeah.”

“Good,” she says, turning to the track, “then let’s get started on your first lesson.”

Keith is a bit disappointed to find out that his first lesson is not actually flying, but instead learning about the hover bikes.

When it’s all said and done however, it’s still pretty interesting. He learns a bit about how the engine runs, how to tell if it is in good shape or not, and what parts are important. He learns the different ways a turbine can spin and how much weight it can hold, and he learns what is and isn’t dangerous for both a rider and a bike. Not the most exciting stuff, but certainly useful.

At the end of it all Rowan tells him that by the end of their lessons Keith should be able to very near put a bike together from scratch.

Or, you know, at the very least do pretty decent repairs on his own.

She tells him to come back on Friday, so he does.

It isn’t until the end of that lesson that she lets him ride. Apparently to take notes on where to go from there. What his style is like, what needs improvement, etc.

“What do I have to do?” Keith asks.

“Just ride, like you would if it wasn’t a race,” Rowan instructs him.

So that’s what Keith does. And honestly? He will _never_ tire of the feeling that comes with flying. It feels natural. Like he belongs there, with the wind on his face and the sand in his hair.

When Rowan calls him back up, she considers him for a long moment.

“You… really like flying, don’t you?” Rowan says, unexpectedly.

Keith tries not to grin. “I _love_ flying,” he corrects. “Everything about it, it- it feels like freedom. Like fire.”

“Fire, huh,” Rowan says, and Keith’s ears burn a bit. He feels like he may have given away more than he intended with that.

“That explains that,” Rowan murmurs, seemingly to herself, then says, “Might want to be careful though. Fire can burn you pretty easily.”

And yeah. Keith knows that. Probably better than most people.

But fire also keeps people warm.

And Keith is running hot blooded.

It isn’t until the next lesson that the teaching _really_ begins.

“I said veer left!” Rowan shouts, clearly annoyed.

“If I do that, I’ll crash!” Keith yells back.

Rowan marches over to him, and grabs the handles of the bike.

“Look,” she tells him, repositioning the bike, “right now you’re turning hard right, and having to veer once you come out of the turn. You have less control and it’s wasting precious seconds. If you correct yourself and position your weight right, then you’ll come out straight.”

It isn’t easy, learning how to fly. Keith has always gone primarily by intuition, but that can only get him so far. And Rowan is a hard instructor to please. But he works at it, and he improves.

 

But that doesn’t mean that it never gets frustrating, or that Keith doesn’t have doubts.

Over two weeks into their lessons, and Keith is still several valuable seconds too slow, and pulling up short on an important maneuver.

“Again,” Rowan says, arms crossed.

Keith is panting, and glaring at her. Hover bikes require a lot more physical energy than hover cycles. You have to throw your weight around and maneuver your body more carefully. And they have been at this for hours now.

“This isn’t helping,” he snaps, his last nerve thoroughly frayed.

“That’s because you’re not _listening_ ,” Rowan says. “You’re still putting too much speed on the jump. You’re punching up because of it and wasting time both in the air and on that turn. You’re gonna spin out of control if you keep it up.”

The maneuver is complicated, but not unreasonably so. A small jump over the mound, a quick turn and then dodge through the boulders. But Keith has never had to do anything so complex before, much less while trying to make up for time.

“If I go any slower, I won’t make the jump,” Keith says for the umpteenth time.

Rowan rolls her eyes. “That’s fear talking, kid. It won’t get you anywhere.”

Keith growls, annoyed at himself and his instructor.

“Do you want to sit around and mope,” Rowan challenges, “or do you want to fly?”

Keith grits his teeth and remounts the bike.

She nods. “Again then.”

Keith comes up on the mound at full speed, as normal, and tries to do as Rowan had instructed, letting off at the last moment, and letting his momentum carry him over the obstacle. But Keith can see the ground rushing up to meet him, and pulls up at the last moment, causing the bike to jerk.

He clears the mound, but then the wall of the canyon was suddenly right there, and he has to wrench the wheel the other way. Ideally, he would have coasted along the curved edge for a moment, but his speed is too great, and the turn too sharp. The wall clips the edge of his hover bike, causing Keith to lose control.

He tries to swerve around the boulder in his path, but can’t manage it in time, crashing the entire right side of the bike into the formation.

Keith is thrown from the cycle, and rolls a good distance, before finally skidding to a stop.

He can hear Rowan shouting and the pounding of footsteps.

Keith’s world tilts as he tries to roll onto his knees. His side lights up with pain however, and he doubles over.

He’s had worse, clearly. And he doesn’t _think_ anything’s broken. But it certainly hurts. He’s almost certain he has several bruised ribs.

But more than anything, the _frustration_ hurt. He has tried and tried, and tried, but still failed. Isn’t he supposed to be _good_ at this?

Isn’t flying supposed to belong to him?

So why does it feel so hopeless?

He feels tears of pain and anger sting his eyes, but refuses to let them fall.

“What the fuck was that?” Rowan shouts as she runs up to Keith. “You could have gotten yourself _killed_ with a stunt like that!”

Keith refuses to look up at her, instead keeping his head bowed and glaring at the ground.

He can feel her eyes on the back of his neck.

Finally she says, “Get up.”

Keith doesn’t move.

“You that hurt?” Rowan demands. “Cuz if I need to drive you to the hospital then you better speak the hell up.”

Keith just shakes his head.

“Then _get_. _Up_ ,” she hisses.

“I’m done!” Keith shouts back, finally fed up. “I tried and I- I couldn’t do it okay!”

There was a pause. Then-

“Oh, you’re done are you?” She sneers. “You fall a bit and you just give up? That’s all it takes?”

“I _tried_ , okay!” Keith says, and he feels ashamed as his voice cracks. “I _tried_. This isn’t _helping_.”

And maybe nothing ever would. Maybe this was destined to be poisoned too. Razed to the ground by him like everything else.

“You know what you’re problem is, kid,” Rowan says, voice hard, “you’ve got all the natural talent in the world, and a lot of passion. But you don’t have shit when it comes to discipline. Something takes time or trust and you want to push back or throw in the towel. It’s a _waste_.”

Keith feels his breath catch in his throat.

“Just… leave me alone,” he croaks.

He doesn’t want to be here anymore. Doesn’t think he can take looking at Rowan, or the track, or the bikes for another second.

He doesn’t need to face another thing he has _ruined_.

“Fine,” Rowan says, evenly. “You want to be left alone? _Fine_. But don’t come crying to me later. Either you get your act together and get ready to actually fucking _listen_ , or you don’t come back at all, got me?”

Keith doesn’t reply.

Rowan just marches away, and Keith could hear her grumbling, “Waste of my fucking time.”

 

The thing is, with fire, that without some kind of direction, without some kind of outlet, it just grows and lashes out as it likes.

And Keith feels like he is spiraling in the days after he walks away from Rowan.

He has tried to be better about fighting in school, but he still has a bad habit of losing his patience or temper and shouting back at teachers or students. It lands him in a fair bit of trouble, but nothing as major as the first two fights.

But that week, Keith ends up pushing another boy into the school fountain.

The other kid had started in on him for ‘sitting in his spot’ apparently, and had tried to grab him and shove him away when Keith refused to move. The ass had ended up pressing against Keith’s still bruised shoulder, causing the pain to flare up. Keith lashed out without a second’s hesitation, says, “If you really want the spot so badly, then _fine_ ,” before shoving the kid into the water.

He ends up in the principal’s office again.

At this point the man just seems tired.

When he goes to pick up the phone and dial his foster mother, Keith feels his stomach plummet.

“Please,” he says quietly, “please don’t call Sara.”

He’s fairly sure the principal will ignore him or chide him for saying it, but instead the man actually pauses.

“And why shouldn’t I?” he asks.

Keith looks away. How can he explain the shame that would come with Sara’s disappointment? How can he explain that he feels too guilty to face her?

Instead of trying, he says, “Please. I’ll take the suspension or- or whatever. But I don’t want to call Sara away from work again. I’ve… I’ve caused her enough trouble.”

To Keith’s surprise, the man actually sets the phone down with a sigh.

“Mr.Kyeong, I don’t believe you are a bad student,” he begins curtly. “To the contrary, actually. Your teachers all say that you often receive some of the top marks in your class. But it seems your behavior doesn’t reflect this. Why?”

Keith shrugs, chewing his lip as he mulls that over. Top marks? Him? He had never really thought much on his grades.

The man frowns. “I don’t think you get any enjoyment from of acting out. Yet you continue. Why?”

“I’m tired,” Keith says almost automatically. He wants to hit himself. Why did he have to say _that_?

(The last thing he needs is for someone to label him _depressed_ , and ship him off to some psyche ward.)

“Well according to your teachers, you certainly seem to fall asleep enough in class for that to be the case,” the man says warily. “But being tired does not excuse being disruptive or _violent_.”

The man examines him carefully. “I understand that you’ve been through a lot, Mr.Kyeong. I have no doubt that you are struggling. But I can’t just excuse behavior like this.”

Keith still doesn’t meet his eyes.

“You know, it is a shame,” the man says, seeming tired himself. “I really do believe you’re a bright boy. You could do great things.”

Keith looks up at him with his bangs casting a shadow over his eyes. He doesn’t tell him that he’s wrong.

The man’s expression is stern, but not unkind as he says, “I can’t excuse this behavior. But I’d like to help you, Keith.”

Keith feels something constrict in his chest uncomfortably. “I… There isn’t anything.” He shakes his head. “I’m not asking for an excuse. I just don’t want to drag Sara or Michael into this anymore.”

“Are you afraid of them?” the man asks gently.

Keith backpedals quickly, shaking his head. “What? No! No, of course not, I-No. They’ve been kind to me. They… they shouldn’t have to deal with this…,” his voice lowers, “with me.”

The man watches him over the tops of his glasses, clearly mulling over his request.

Finally, he says, “Lunch detention for the rest of the semester. I will not call Sara this time. But do know that if anything like this happens _again_ , it will not be your foster mother I am calling, but the police.” The man gives him a severe look. “And I imagine that you would _not_ want that.”

Keith’s eyes widen, and his breath hitches. On the one hand this is a good offer. It’s not as if Keith is particularly partial to where he at lunch at. But the idea of Sara getting a call that he’s landed himself in juvie… it’s scary.

After a moment he nods.

He can keep himself out of fights for long enough. He _won’t_ let Sara get that call.

The principal adds, “That also does not prevent your teachers from giving you after school detention either for any individual offenses.” Then his expression softens. “I know you can do better, Mr.Kyeong. I expect to see it.”

Keith feels that same tightening in his chest, and nods.

 

 

Fire, as it turns out, is a fickle thing. And the strangest of things can soothe it.

At the end of the week, Michael finds Keith in his room, staring at the dagger his father had left him.

“What’s that?” the man asks, and Keith startles, scrambling to hide the knife quickly.

A bit too late.

“Huh, where’d you get that?” Michael steps into the room, tilting his head slightly.

Keith feels his ears burn, and he pulls the knife back out from behind him, and lays it in his lap. He’s not _really_ supposed to have it. But so far, no one has ever tried to confiscate it.

He doesn’t know what he’d do if Michael tries to take it away from him.

But it’s too late to hide it. He might as well own up to it.

“It was my dad’s,” he admits in a small voice, not able to meet the man’s eyes. “He left it with my mom to give to me.”

Over the years Keith had found himself thinking about his father occasionally. He remembers how fondly his mother had talked about the man. And when he had first entered foster care, he used to day dream that one day, his father would show up at the door and whisk him away to a better place.

He never came.

Of course he didn’t.

Keith has no idea _who_ the man is, or if he’s even still alive.

But the bitterness had crept its way into his heart anyway.

Whenever he thinks about his absent father he can’t help but feel resentful. He was supposed to be there. Why wasn’t he there?

Why hadn’t they been enough?

Why wasn’t Keith enough?

There had been a time when he had wanted to toss the dagger into a lake, let it sink to the bottom and bid it good riddance.

But as much as the blade reminded him of his abandonment and hurt… it also reminded him of his mother. And her love.

It’s all he has of the man he’d never known.

How could he get rid of it?

Michael hums in thought, and takes a seat on the bed next to Keith. “It’s very nice,” he says to Keith’s surprise. “May I look at it?”

Keith’s instinct is to pull it away. But Michael isn’t threatening to take it from him… He tentatively holds it out to the man.

Michael holds it with reverence, and slowly slides the blade from the sheath, considering it as he turns it this way and that.

“Interesting,” he murmurs. “I’ve never seen a design quite like the one on the cover, but the dagger is relatively plain. Certainly very old however,” he continues, running his finger experimentally over the edge. “Might be a family heirloom.”

Keith just watches him carefully. To be honest he has never given the dagger’s design much thought. It was just a knife. Was there really anything else to it?

“Edges are certainly dull, though,” Michael says, and gives Keith a pondering look. “Do you know how to sharpen a knife, Keith?”

Keith shakes his head, a bit nonplussed by the turn in conversation. “No.”

The man looks back to the knife, clearly thinking, and says, “I’ll teach you, if you’d like to learn.”

Keith feels something in him soothe, and that visceral instinct that has been snapping since he walked away from the track, quiets for a moment, seeming almost content at the offer.

“Really?” the boy asks, eyes wide.

Michael smiles back at him. “Of course. If you want.”

Keith can’t say yes fast enough, and the man laughs.

“Alright then,” he chuckles, standing up. “Follow me, and I’ll be happy to show you what I know.”

Keith trails after the man, and is surprised when they enter the kitchen.

Michael pulls a large metal block out of a drawer.

“May I?” the man asks, holding out his hand.

This time, Keith doesn’t hesitate to hand over the knife again.

“Now, this isn’t a kitchen knife, but the mechanics are pretty similar,” the man begins.

Keith listens and watches as his foster father shows him a few times how to pull the blade against the metal. Michael instructs him on how to keep the blade turned slightly, but to be careful of how hard he strikes the sharpening block.

After a few minutes, the man has Keith try it out.

It’s actually kind of… relaxing, strangely enough.

The fire around him, in him, encompassing him, seems to tame, content and soothed.

It feels nice to care for one of his few possessions. Sharpening the blade almost feels cathartic. Like working away the dull edges of the knife to reveal something sharper and brighter was doing the same for him.

When Michael claps him on the back with a smile and compliments him, before giving him a proper warning about safety and handing back the knife, Keith feels more clear headed than he has in a long time.

 

That next Tuesday Keith goes back to the race track.

Rowan stands in front of him with her arms crossed.

Keith takes a deep breath, and says, “I’m ready to try again. And… I’m ready to listen.”

The woman narrows her eyes, but says, “Grab a bike.”

This time, when Keith comes up to the mound, he lets the momentum carry him, and the ground rush up to meet him. But he refuses to pull up again or even screw his eyes shut. He feels the turbines slow, feels the dirt lift from the mound, kicking up and swirling around his ankles. He is only centimeters off the ground.

And then he’s over the jump.

He pulls to the left as he reaches the canyon wall, and kicks the speed back up as he finishes the turn, blasting off the wall as leverage and swerving around the boulders in his path with ease.

Rowan’s standing there at the finish.

“Well then,” she says, and Keith feels like he was holding his breath. “Let’s pick back up where we left off.”

Keith’s smile is so wide his cheeks ache.

 

Eventually, a little over a month after they had started training, Rowan says, “Show up next Saturday night.”

Keith looks back at her in confusion. “Saturday?”

She grins down at him. “You’re in the race kid,” she says, then shrugs, adding, “You know, so long as you pay up.”

Keith still has the fifty dollars from when he sold Sara’s earrings. It sat in the bottom of his bag, heavy on his conscience. But still, he nods.

It’s enough for one more race.

When Keith shows up Saturday night, the place is _beyond_ packed. They are actually setting up the larger, wider track that sits on the other side of the canyon.

There look to be well over a dozen riders milling about, and even more spectators than usual, drinking, shouting, and dancing.

Keith finds Rowan and wades through the throngs of people to get to her.

As usual she’s taking money outside the small hut.

“Why are there so many people here?” Keith asks.

“It’s the Trifly Race,” Rowan says, like that makes any sense.

“The what?”

“Three times a year we have a big race for the full pot. We open the bigger track and everything for it. Always draws the most people,” she explains. “We make up for the revenue loss by charging for drinks. Brings in a fortune.” She indicates towards a temporary bar that had been set up on the far side of the track.

Keith feels the blood drain from his face. “And you wanted me to race _now?_ ”

Rowan shoots him a look like _he’s_ the crazy one. “Uh, yeah? Biggest pot remember? I get half your cut. The bigger _you_ win, the more I get paid.”

“Rowan, this is only my second race!” Keith yells. “I didn’t even win the first one, and that was _a lot_ smaller! What am I supposed to do if I lose?”

Rowan shrugs. “Try again later.”

Keith grits his teeth. “I don’t _have_ the money for another race after this.”

Rowan’s grin is sharp and full of teeth. “Don’t lose then.”

Keith just stares back at her.

“Now hand over the cash, short stack,” Rowan says, holding out her hand.

Keith glares up at her, but hands over the fifty dollars anyway.

It feels like there are butterflies in his stomach. Except instead of fluttering about they’re trying to eat him from the inside out.

How was there any way he could win against so many people?

Keith goes to stand by the docking bay and watches nervously as everyone else preps for the race.

Twenty minutes before it’s set to start Keith grabs one of the bikes he has been practicing on. Rowan didn’t believe in luck as a factor in racing, so she made him switch cycles every practice, just so he wouldn’t get attached to any of them.

But at least this way, Keith knows the cycle is in working order.

He goes about a quick routine check of the engine, fuel source, and turbines as Rowan had taught him. It’s not really needed, but it’s a nice distraction. Everything seems to be in order.

Five minutes before they’re set to head down to the race track, Rowan is suddenly right beside him.

She clasps his shoulder firmly. “How you feeling, kid?”

“Can butterflies eat through flesh?” Keith blurts out.

“Well that answers that,” Rowan says drily.

Keith’s face burns and he draws his arms around himself, staring at the ground.

“Look,” Rowan says, grabbing his shoulder, and turning him towards her, “you need to stop freaking out. You’re a great flyer. One of the best I’ve ever seen. And you’ve improved a lot since I’ve known you. I wouldn’t have signed you up for a race you couldn’t win, okay?”

Keith looks back up at her hesitantly. “You really think I can do this?”

“Kid, you could out fly these losers any day of the week,” Rowan says, smiling down at him. “Now go knock em’ dead.”

Keith can’t help but feel his chest swell with pride.

It feels nice, having someone believe in him. It reminds him a lot of Brent, right before his race with Nate.

He nods sharply and turns to start the trek down to the starting line.

He _can_ do this.

Ten laps, as usual. Only this time the track is bigger, and stretches a huge portion of the canyon. Keith has practiced on parts of this track a few times, but rarely ever did he fly the whole thing.

But he can’t think about that right now. He can’t think about his nerves, or the other participants eyeing him strangely and whispering.

He can do this.

Keith mounts the cycle, and kick starts the engine.

And as soon as the gun sounds, Keith is off, speeding down the track like a falcon.

He pulls around the obstacles with no issue, and is keeping up with the top five people without problem, passing them out, only to be passed himself several times.

The feeling of flying is still amazing. Even after all the lessons. The rush of adrenaline. The flames of the fire. _This_ is where he belongs.

For the first several laps he keeps his position.

But during the sixth he begins to pour on the speed. He’s catching by the seventh when they reach the narrowest point of the track.

The track is wide in most places, but at one particular turn, it narrows so that no more than two flyers could fit on the canyon’s edge (safely) at once.

As Keith closes the gap between himself and the last three competitors, one glances over their shoulder, and then, to his surprise, slows slightly, dropping back, side by side with third.

Just as they are coming upon the corner.

Leaving Keith with two options. He can either continue at his current speed and risk either crashing into the other two riders or falling off the edge, or he will have to slow down, losing precious seconds and the possibility of gaining an edge on his opponents.

Keith’s eyes narrow.

He refuses to play this game by their rules. As they begin rounding the corner, blocking his path, Keith veers left abruptly, treating it much like the obstacle Rowan had taught him to maneuver around.

Pull up, let your momentum carry you… and then pour the speed back on as you finish the turn.

Keith’s cycle soars over the canyon’s ledge, leaving him flying over open air as he moves left and _down_. It’s a scary feeling. Being suspended in the air, and knowing that if he messes this up, it could cost him greatly.

He lands the jump perfectly, swerving back onto the track, straightening out directly in front of the two riders who had blocked him, forcing them to slow down in surprise.

Keith is grinning ear to ear and sends a smirk over his shoulder at the two that had tried to cut him off. He can vaguely hear the crowd up top going absolutely _wild_.

Now all he has to do is over take the guy in first.

It takes another two laps. But on the ninth, during the last stretch, when Keith is neck and neck with the guy, he is able to pull ahead at a sharp turn, using Rowan’s and his mother’s advice.

He crosses the finish line barely a second before the other racer.

This time, Keith pulls to a stop quickly, turning his bike and slipping off his helmet. He’s breathing heavily as he observes the scene in front of him.

The person who comes in second is ripping off their helmet, and looks positively _furious_ , glaring at him.

The two that come in third and fourth are just crossing the finish line.

And the crowd is going _crazy_.

Keith can’t help but beam as he walks his hover bike back to the docking bay.

He’d- he’d won. He’d really really _won_.

Keith feels like he could _soar_.

Rowan is waiting for him at the top of the canyon, and for once, she’s smiling fully, her teeth bright against her dark skin.

“Wow, kid, what the hell was that back there?” she asks. “You jumped the fucking canyon.”

Keith feels his stomach drop as a thought occurs to him. “Is that- is that illegal? Or?”

“Hell no!” Rowan cries, grabbing him by the shoulder. “That was incredible! Stupidly dangerous, and trust me we’ll talk about that later, but absolutely incredible!” She ruffles his hair. “I told ya you could do it.”

Keith grins up at her.

When Keith is handed the earnings from the Trifly pot, he thinks he might actually pass out. He doesn’t know if he’s _ever_ held so much money at once. It feels intimidating.

But he also comes to the stuttering realization that this means he can continue to race. To fly!

It’s the greatest feeling he could imagine.

 

Not much changes after that, but things are just… better. Keith feels more like himself, but stronger, more resilient. He’s burning brighter than ever. And he realizes, in the back of his mind, that he’s probably spinning out of control in the long run. But he can’t really be bothered to care.

Because for the first time, Keith isn’t afraid to crash.

 

The crash does, inevitably, come however.

Keith just doesn’t realize it until too late.

 

“Michael,” Sara’s calling, “have you seen my earrings?”

Keith freezes up from where he was brushing Hailey’s hair in front of the TV. She didn’t have anywhere to go really, she had just dragged him to the couch, shoved the brush in his hands, and demanded he play with her hair. Keith couldn’t really find it in him to say no.

Sara and Michael are supposed to be going out for the night. Some banquet for Michael’s job. Keith doesn’t really know, he hadn’t cared to ask beyond that.

But they seem to be taking it rather seriously, actually going to the effort of dressing up for the event. It’s weird to see Sara with her hair curled, but she looks nice.

If she’s looking for earrings though… she can’t be talking about the sapphires… could she?

“No, honey,” Michael calls back to her from the bottom of the staircase, where he’s fixing his bowtie in a mirror.

“I can’t find them,” Sara says as she comes to the stair railway, looking down into the living room.

Keith feels his heart sink.

She’s wearing an off white dress with royal blue accents all around.

Keith tries not to panic. He hadn’t paid much attention to her jewelry collection. Maybe she has another pair of earrings that would have matched.

“Are you sure you didn’t throw them out by mistake?” Michael asks.

“I don’t think so,” Sara replies, frowning. She glances over to where Keith and Hailey are sitting.

“Oh, Keith!” she exclaims, eyes lighting up. Keith knows what’s coming and he feels like he’s going to be hit by an oncoming truck. “You saw my sapphire earrings with the pearls, right? Do you happen to know where they might be?”

Keith’s mouth feels dry, and his heart is pounding in his chest.

He still feels _awful_ about stealing from Sara, and he suddenly feels like he might puke. He wants to cry, or curl up, or beg for forgiveness, or-

He shakes his head.

“No,” he says, and is surprised when his voice doesn’t come out as a croak. “The last time I saw them they were in the drawer.”

Sara sighs. “Oh well, this is what I get for not checking beforehand.”

After that she walks back into her room.

A few minutes later she walks back down wearing a pair of simple pearl earrings.

“Ready?” Michael asks her, holding out his hand.

Sara took it, smiling slightly. “Yes,” she says, but then her brow furrows slightly. “I just wish I could find out what happened to those earrings. They had been my grandmother’s favorite.”

And Keith hadn’t known that it was possible to feel _worse_.

“We’ll look for them a bit closer when we get back,” Michael says. “For now, it’s off to the ball!”

Sara’s expression smooths and she laughs. “Let’s just be sure to be back before midnight.”

Michael gives her a wink. “No promises.”

Sara shakes her head, and as they are walking out the door, calls to them, “Have fun you guys! Make sure you listen to John and Ellie while we’re gone.”

Hailey courses, “yes ma’am!” while Keith just nods.

When the door closes, Keith stares after them, feeling something awful tugging in his gut.

The full weight of what he’s done hits him for the first time. He stole a family heirloom from the people who took him into their house. They take him in, and he commits a _crime_ against them. He feels unclean.

“ _Keeeeeeiiiittttthhh_ ,” Hailey whines, slapping the hand holding the hair brush repeatedly and drawing him out of his thoughts, “I didn’t say stop!”

“Uh, right,” Keith mumbles, turning back to her. “Sorry.”

 

He can’t forget about it. Every time he tries to concentrate on something else, those stupid earrings pop into his head, and he feels sicker and sicker with guilt as the days go on.

He considers telling Sara, confessing.

But he doesn’t know what would happen. Would she throw him out of the house? Would she request he be transferred? Would they call the police? He _had_ technically stolen from them after all.

And Keith knows, logically, that they’re good people, but every time he considers a confrontation with either of them, he feels something cold grip his spine, and the few scars left from Rick tingle uncomfortably.

Every time the thought crosses his mind, his gut instinct rejects it so thoroughly that he just can’t contemplate it farther.

He can’t keep living like this though. He can’t continue to carry around lead weights in his stomach, can’t continue to fight to even get a bite down at every meal, can’t continue to avoid Sara’s eyes every time she looks at him.

He has to do something.

And if he can’t _confess_ , then there’s really only one thing he can do.

Try to make it right.

Five days after the formal event, and nearly three weeks after the TriFly Race (and two more races under his belt), Keith goes back to the alley between Frenchie’s and the corner store on Fifth Rue.

Sure enough, Dylan and his friends are there.

They notice him approaching and straighten.

“Well what have we got here?” Dylan says with a shark’s grin. “Our little kid with an attitude. You got somethin’ else for us today?”

Keith shakes his head, and does his best to keep his shoulders straight and look confident. It’s hard to pull off when he’s shaking.

“No,” Keith says, trying to keep his voice strong as he comes to a stop in front of them.

“No?” Dylan asks. “Okay then. So what do you want?”

Keith takes a deep breath. “I came to ask for those earrings back.”

Dylan bursts out laughing. “You _what_?”

Keith grimaces, but holds firm, ignoring the laughter from Dylan and his friends. “I want to buy them back.”

Dylan snorts as his laughter dies. “You got to be kidding me. We don’t do _refunds_.”

Keith glares up at him. “I can pay you. Full price. I have the money now.”

“Oh you have the money,” Dylan mocks. “That’s great. But no deal, kid. If you don’t have anything to sell then _scram_.”

“Why not?” Keith asks desperately, taking a step forward. “I said I could pay!”

“Kid, if you wanted them, you shouldn’t have sold them in the first place,” Dylan says, leaning back against the wall again. “That’s on you. We’ve got buyers to satisfy. We aren’t going to hold anything just in case you _change your mind_.”

Keith feels his heart drop. “So… you already sold them?”

Dylan scoffs. “It’s been months now. Of course we already sold them.”

Keith looks down, and tries to stop his lip from trembling. If they were already sold then that meant…

No.

Keith refuses to accept that. He’d track down whoever he had to in order to get those earrings back.

Keith looks back up, eyes flaring as he demands, “To who?”

“We aren’t telling you shit,” Dylan says. “Buyers are confidential. No ifs ands or ors about it.”

“I can pay you for the information-” Keith tries desperately, but Dylan cuts him off, getting in his face very quickly.

“I said- _No_. _Deal_ ,” Dylan repeats, and Keith can actually feel his breath on his face. “Now _scram_.”

For the first time since coming to live with the McAlisters, Keith genuinely feels _afraid_.

He can’t stop himself from instinctively pulling back a bit, but he still manages to hold his ground. He can’t give up so easily.

“I need those earrings back,” Keith says. “I’m not leaving here until I know who you sold them to.”

“Oh you’re not?” Dylan sneers, shoving him.

Keith stumbles, but manages to keep himself from falling on his ass. He grits his teeth once he’s found his footing, glaring up at the blond boy.

“No, I’m _not_ ,” Keith hisses, and channeling the advice that Alicia and Ron had given him so long ago about fighting larger opponents, manages to push the older boy back.

Dylan stumbles, from both the shove and the shock, eyes wide and surprised. It takes a moment for him to regain his footing. But when he looks back up at Keith, there’s _rage_ in his eyes.

“You little _shit_ ,” Dylan snarls, and suddenly hands are on Keith.

Two of Dylan’s friends grab him by the arms and try to force him down onto his knees. But Keith kicks out, catching one of them by the knee.

The teenager cries out, letting go of his arm. Keith doesn’t get the chance to pull free from the other before the one on his left swings him forward, causing him to crash into the metal trashcans.

Keith falls onto the ground with a groan, disoriented.

“You honestly thought,” Dylan says, advancing on him, “that you could come around here, _demanding_ that we fix _your_ fuck ups? Fuck no, kid. That’s not how this works.”

Dylan grabs him by the nape of his neck, hauling Keith up by his hair and-

Keith, looking back, can admit that he may have snapped.

Because in that moment he is suddenly being drug back to the Albines’ house, and Rick is yelling at him, and there is pain, and _no_ -

 _No_.

He lashes out at Dylan, causing the boy to drop him. Dylan pulles back with a hiss, and suddenly all four are converging on him, and Keith feels his adrenaline spike, that visceral instinct roar, and his blood is running _hot_.

Keith’s still not entirely sure of how it happened.

But somehow, in the thick of the fight, punching, and kicking, and panicking, doing his best not to fall, Keith is toppled back, and his first instinct is to reach for his father’s knife.

He doesn’t even realize he’s holding it until Dylan is suddenly recoiling from him in shock, a thin red line across his face.

Keith stops, surprised by the sudden blood and the abrupt halt of the fight. All four teenagers are watching him warily.

When he follows their gaze down, he realizes they’re staring at his father’s dagger. The dagger _he_ is holding.

The dagger with blood dripping from its tip.

Keith draws a sharp breath, and his stance drops as he glances furtively back up at Dylan.

There’s shouting, but it’s like white noise in Keith’s ears.

“What the fuck, man?!” Someone is yelling.

“Fuck, kid’s got a goddamn, _knife_!”

They all back away from him slowly.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here!” Another calls, and someone grabs Dylan, who is still staring at Keith in shock, and tugs him away while Keith just watches blankly, panting hard.

When he finally tears his eyes away from the scene and back down to the knife, he feels horror well up in his chest.

The teens don’t even get to the end of the alley before there are sirens and blue and red flashing lights cutting them off.

Keith glances over his shoulder, still too shell shocked to move.

His hands are trembling.

There’s shouting, and an officer is approaching him, yelling something.

Keith drops the knife, and he doesn’t know if he does it because they’re telling him too, or because his hands are shaking too much. Before he can even put his hands up there are hands on him again, but this time, he doesn’t fight.

 

As it turns out someone heard the fight and flagged down the cops.

Keith is asked some questions by police officers, and then left in one of the police station cells.

He doesn’t have to call Sara himself. They did it for him.

Keith is curled up in the corner of the cell with a blanket they had given him when he arrived, still shaking when Sara rushes into the station, hair a mess and clearly frazzled.

When her eyes land on Keith she seems both relieved and… hurt? Keith can’t really tell.

He feels awful.

It seems that Sara had gotten that call, after all.

 

“He pulled a knife, Mrs. McAlister,” a cop says a few minutes later, when Keith is put in the same room as the officer and his foster mother, cuffed to the chair. “That’s a very serious offense.”

“I understand, sir,” Sara says. “But Keith didn’t do any major damage. He was scared and defending himself.” She glances over at her foster son. “You said yourself that he seemed to be experiencing the first stages of shock when you picked him up.”

The man doesn’t look impressed. “He got into a fist fight with some boys, and brought out a knife. That seems a bit excessive to me, ma’am.”

Sara actually sounds… _angry_ , when she says, “There were four of them, Officer Hoggs. Older, larger, stronger. If Keith felt like he might be fighting for his life…”

Officer Hoggs scoffs. “It was a _fist fight_. One that, according to the story, your foster son here _started_.”

“What?” Sara asks, and Keith shrinks further in his chair.

“They all say Keith here sold them something a while back, a pair of earrings or something like that. Kid came looking to get ‘em back, ran into trouble, and a fight broke out.” The man glances at Keith. “Doesn’t exactly paint Mr.Kyeong here as the victim.”

Sara’s eyes widen, and she looks down at Keith, who is curled up in the chair, avoiding her gaze. Understanding dawns on her, and she sighs, closing her eyes.

“I’m not saying Keith didn’t play a part in this. But I’m asking you, taking into consideration his past experience with violence, and the fact that this is his first offense, that you please have some leniency.” She turns back to the Officer, eyes pleading. “Please. I don’t believe he meant to hurt anyone… and I don’t think you believe that either.”

The man sighs, and glances back to Keith, a frown pulling at his mouth, highlighting the creases of his face. “…Fine. I can let him off with a warning this _once_.” He looks back to Sara. “I can’t say whether or not any of the other boys or their parents will press charges however. And if anything like this happens again,” the man shakes his head, “there’s no second chances.”

“I understand,” Sara says quietly. “Thank you, sir.”

Someone comes to unlock Keith from the chair, and he and Sara are escorted into a room where Keith’s bag is handed back to him, thankfully, along with his father’s dagger.

 

The drive back to the house is silent.

When they finally get back, Sara has his bag in front of her and sits Keith down at the kitchen table.

She pulls out the knife, his school books, and the money.

Sara’s eyes widen and her breath catches a bit at the latter.

Finally, she looks up at him and asks, “Keith… what on _earth_ were you thinking?”

Keith curls in on himself, hunching his shoulders slightly. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I- I really didn’t mean to- I don’t know what happened.”

“Pulling a _knife_?” Sara asks. “Why do you even _have_ this?”

Keith doesn’t look up from the table, feeling his eyes sting. He refuses to cry.

“It’s my dad’s. I sometimes carry it with me just… just so- I don’t know.”

He flicks his eyes up, and Sara’s expression is pained.

“I understand that it may be… _important_ to you, Keith,” she starts, “but it’s still a _knife_. It’s dangerous and, as you saw today, can get you in real trouble. What if it hadn’t been a simple cut? What if you had accidently hit something important? If you had gone a little lower you could have hit his throat.” Sara looks back at him seriously. “Keith, you could have _killed_ somebody with this.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Keith chokes out. He won’t cry, he _won’t_.

Sara watches him for a long moment, gestures to the money on the table and asks, “What is all of this Keith? Not just the money, but… _this?_ What were you doing out there?”

Keith looks back down at the table. “It was for- I wanted- I was trying to buy-,” he swallows thickly, “buy back your earrings.”

“My earrings,” Sara repeats, hand coming up to her temple. “The sapphires.”

Keith flinches. “Yes.”

“Keith?” Sara prompts, but Keith doesn’t reply. “Keith, why did you sell my earrings?”

Keith feels his stomach lurch, and when he tries to say something, a high pitched whine is the only thing that comes out of his mouth.

He recoils, covering his mouth slightly and turning his gaze to the linoleum floor.

“Keith-” Sara says, and Keith doesn’t let her get any further.

“I’m sorry,” he gasps out, feeling the heavy guilt finally _break_. “I’m sorry, I just- I needed the money, and I thought-” he cuts himself off. “I’m sorry,” he finishes in a whisper.

Sara looks concerned. “What do you mean, you needed the money?”

Keith freezes up. He hadn’t thought of this. He doesn’t really know what to tell Sara. He can’t tell her about the races, _he_ _can’t_.

So he stays silent.

Sara sighs when he doesn’t reply, then asks, “So what happened? Why go back?”

“I wanted to make it right,” Keith says, and chances a look at his foster mother again. “I just- it wasn’t right. I wanted to fix it, I thought I could get them back, but then they had already sold the earrings, and they wouldn’t tell me where, and I don’t even know-”

“Breathe, Keith,” Sara commands gently, and Keith stops himself, sucking in a deep breath.

He’s still shaking.

“I’m so sorry, Sara,” Keith says, and the sound that comes from him isn’t a sob, but it is far too close for Keith’s liking. “I’m so _so_ _sorry_.”

He wipes at his eyes in frustration, as he tries to catch the tears before they fall.

He isn’t the one who has any right to be upset here.

“I get it if you don’t still want me here,” Keith says quietly.

There is a long, drawn out silence, as Keith waits for the worst.

“Keith,” Sara says, “look at me, please?”

Keith raises his head slowly, reluctantly.

Sara gives him a sad smile. “Keith, I don’t care about the earrings, okay? They’re just jewelry. And yes, it was wrong of you to take them, but they’re not worth this much fuss. And they’re certainly not worth more than you.”

Keith feels his breath catch in his throat a bit.

“I am sad though,” she continues, “that you felt you couldn’t tell me. Neither Michael or I ever want to make you feel unwanted.”

Keith can’t meet her eyes.

Sara’s expression turns somber again. “However, I am very worried about you.” She looks down at the money on the table. “Why did you feel like you needed money, and _where_ did you get all of _this_?”

And the concern in her voice is so sincere, that it physically pains Keith to hear it.

But he just shakes his head stiffly.

Sara frowns, then tries a different tactic. “Why didn’t you just ask us if you needed money?”

“Couldn’t,” Keith says quietly.

“Was it for drugs?” Sara asks, and Keith’s eyes widen as he immediately shakes his head.

“ _No_! No, that’s not- No.”

She doesn’t seem convinced.

“Keith, please, talk to me,” Sara says. “Explain this to me, because I’m… I’m scared for you.”

Keith knows in that moment that he’s a horrible person. There’s no doubt to it. There’s no silver lining. What had he expected?

“We just want you safe,” Sara continues, imploring, “we _care_ about you Keith. We want you safe and healthy, and happy. But-” she shakes her head. “Getting into fights? Stealing? Threatening someone with a knife? And this,” she gestures to the money on the table, “it’s _scary_. Please, Keith. I want to help you, but I can’t do that if you shut me, and everyone else, out.”

Keith watches her, and he feels dull, dampened, like a candle caught in a rainstorm.

He knows that. He knows that Sara and Michael care. That they want to give him something stable. That they want him to grow into a well-adjusted person, and build a life, a family, here. They want him to be happy.

But Keith- Keith doesn’t know how to tell her that he’s fairly sure some fundamental part of him broke with his mother’s dresser all those years ago.

(Or maybe it was actually along the way, when he was forced to leave one too many families, or maybe it was at the hands of Bailey, or perhaps it was Rick when he broke his body.)

And the truth is, you can’t build on a cracked foundation.

It will always fall apart.

Keith knows that now. He can’t give her what she wants.

So instead, he stays quiet.

“Okay.” Sara looks on the verge of tears as she shakes her head. “Okay,” she repeats and something in Keith’s heart _tears_. “We can continue this conversation later. We’ll worry about punishments in the morning just… just get some sleep.”

Keith nods, but when he goes to grab his backpack and his father’s knife, Sara’s hand stops him.

She gazes back at him apologetically.

“Keith,” she says slowly, “I can’t let you take this with you. You know that, right?”

Panic wells up inside of him, scratching at his throat.

“I- No!” Keith croaks. “Sara, Sara please that’s- it’s one of the only things I have, please _please_ don’t take it away from me. I- I can’t-”

Keith feels a bit like his world is spinning.

The dagger is the only part of his dad that Keith has ever had. He can’t lose it. He _can’t_.

“I won’t bring it with me anywhere, anymore. I promise,” Keith tries when she doesn’t budge.

Sara looks down at the dagger, brows drawn in concern.

After a moment of deliberation, she let’s go, and Keith snatches it away.

“It stays in your room,” she instructs severely. “I will be checking your backpack every morning to make sure you do not have it with you. If I find out you tried to take it _anywhere_ , I _will_ take it away. I can’t have a repeat of today. Am I clear?”

Keith nods quickly.

And with that, he dashes up to his room, possessions clutched firmly to his chest.

 

Things are a bit strained after that.

Sara doesn’t bother physically checking him for the dagger each morning. Instead she asks Keith where he keeps the knife, tells John and Ellie (the two oldest foster children) to watch him for a moment, and then goes upstairs to ensure it remains in its place.

Keith can’t really be angry at her. After all that he’s done, it’s a fair price to pay.

He is also grounded for a month. Keith nods when she tells him as much, but it doesn’t really matter. He just tell his foster siblings that he is staying after school, either for detention or something else entirely on the days that he has practice with Rowan. And at night, he sneaks out much like he has been doing to go race. Either after dinner, while everything is a bit hectic, and he will not easily be missed, or late at night when no one is still awake.

One night after a race however, a little over a week after Sara picks Keith up from a prison cell, Keith walks in the back door to find Sara sitting there at the kitchen table, clearly waiting for him.

“So,” she says, as Keith freezes in the doorway, “I suppose now I know why you were so accommodating about being grounded.”

Keith suppresses a flinch.

“Where were you?” she asks.

Keith’s breath catches in his throat, and he is suddenly in a very different house, with a very different person.

He has to stop, and remind himself, that no. This isn’t Rick, and he isn’t at the Albines’ anymore.

But still, it jars him, and he doesn’t know what to say.

So he doesn’t reply. Silence has become his go to defense mechanism.

And then- Sara honestly looks like she might cry, and Keith can’t help but panic a bit.

“I was just visiting friends,” Keith says quickly.

The laugh she gives is watery, and gives away the first hint of bitterness Keith has heard from her.

“Of course,” she says.

Keith looks away.

“Keith,” she begins, “I don’t know what it is that you think is so awful that you can’t tell me… but I promise, I won’t judge you for it.”

“It’s nothing,” Keith says, holding his ground.

Sara stands up with a sigh and walks over to him. Keith tenses. She sets her fingers under his chin and lifts it gently, examining his face closely.

Keith looks back at her questioningly.

“Well,” she says warily, “you certainly don’t _seem_ intoxicated.”

Keith bristles a bit at that. “What, do you want me to recite the alphabet backwards to you? I told you, I’m not doing drugs.”

“Yes,” Sara says, leaning back against the table. “But you won’t tell me what you _are_ doing.”

Keith doesn’t reply

She watches him, then asks, “Is it gambling?”

Keith’s brows draw in consternation at that. If he replies yes, would he technically be lying?

But he just stays quiet

Sara shakes her head.

“Go back to bed, Keith.”

After that conversation Keith expects for his regulations to be tightened, to be grounded all over again.

But, to his surprise, it never happens.

He still sneaks out at night, and often uses the back door to come back in. Sara seems to always be there, waiting for him. The only exception seems to be when he crawls back in through his window (a much more difficult feat here than it was at the Albines’).

The conversations they have during those times are… odd. Usually Sara asks where he has been and he refuses to respond, as normal. But occasionally they drift to other topics.

“Are you happy here?” Sara asks him one time.

Keith blinks in surprise. “I-”

Happy?

The easy answer is no.

The complicated answer is, well, complicated.

He’s flying, the McAlisters are kind, he feels more like himself again, he feels something like… contentedness.

But underneath all that, he still knows that it isn’t permanent. That he’s just waiting for a chance to leave it all behind before it left him. He’s just hoping he doesn’t ruin everything before he’s gone.

He doesn’t want to poison this too.

(Though it may be too late.)

That realization leaves him more lonely than anything else.

So he answers, “I don’t know,” because that’s the honest truth.

“Can you explain that to me?” Sara asks, with her never ending patience.

Keith shrugs instead of answering, shifting uncomfortably.

Sara looks sad at that, and he can’t help but feel the need to placate her. “I like it here. I- I’m glad I’m not still… there,” he tries.

The smile Sara gives him is weak. But it’s something.

 

Another time, out of the blue, when he comes back at 2 a.m., she asks, “Would you like me to cut your hair?”

By now his hair can be pulled back into a bun, ponytail, or braid easily.

Keith shakes his head.

“I like it long,” he explains.

“Any particular reason why?”

“It- that’s how my mom always liked it.”

“Alright, then.”

 

It continues like this for the next two weeks.

Keith actually feels kind of bad. He knows Sara must be losing sleep, since she waits for him for so long. He can tell that she’s tired in the mornings.

But he doesn’t stop. So nothing changes.

Keith should of have known to expect _something_ , but he doesn’t realize it until it’s too late.

 

On Thursday night he sneaks out through the window and goes to the race track as usual.

None of the races have been quite as tense as the TriFly, if for no other reason than that race being so much larger than most, and he’s had more practice.

He’s been undefeated since then.

When he comes to a stop after his last lap, pulling in first, and takes off his helmet, smiling as adrenaline still courses through him, and looks up at the cheering crowd, he sees an unexpected familiar face.

Sara.

Standing there, at the canyon’s edge, staring down at him with such hurt and disappointment that Keith feels like he’s had the breathe knocked out of him.

He ducks his head quickly, panicking as he tries to figure out what to do. Should he run? Hop back up on the hover bike and fly to the hills?

No. It won’t do any good.

He’s already caught.

There’s nothing else to do but face the music.

He walks his bike back to the docking bay slowly, trying to prolong the inevitable confrontation for as long as possible.

His heart is pounding in his chest because really- there’s no way to make this better.

Rowan is waiting for him as usual.

“Wow, what’s got you down, kiddo?” she asks, cocking her head to the side.

Keith opens his mouth to reply, but ends up just staring at the place where Sara stands, arms crossed almost as if she were holding _herself_ together.

Rowan follows his gaze in confusion. “Who’s that?”

Keith’s throat is dry as he replies, “My foster mom.”

Rowan’s brows shoot up. “Oh shit.”

Keith takes a steadying breath and walks over to her, deciding against trying to brush her off. To his slight surprise, Rowan follows him, a firm presence at his back.

Keith stops in front of Sara, who hasn’t moved past stepping away from the canyon’s edge.

“So,” his foster mother says quietly, “this is where you go?”

Keith doesn’t meet her gaze, but his silence speaks for itself.

Sara exhales sharply, and squeezes her eyes shut, seemingly trying to collect herself.

“How did you find me?” Keith asks.

“I followed you,” Sara says, and her eyes are still closed.

“Uh, yeah, look, I hate to break up this… whatever the hell this is,” Rowan cuts in, and Sara’s eyes snap open and move to the younger woman. “But I need to know if you’re plannin’ on calling the cops or something.”

Sara’s eyes drift back to Keith, who is staring up at her, pleading.

“No,” she says, and she sounds so defeated. “I’m just here for Keith.”

Rowan nods. “Alright then.” She puts a hand on Keith’s shoulder. “Tough break, kid. Let me know if you’re comin’ back or not, alright?”

Keith doesn’t reply as she hands him the money he’d earned from the race, and walks away.

Sara shakes her head, and turns as well. “Let’s go,” she says, barely audible over the crowd.

Keith follows after her, and it feels as if there’s an elephant siting on his chest.

 

They’re at that same damn table again. This time Sara brews tea before sitting down with him, presumably to calm her own nerves. She’s shaking slightly as she slides a mug towards him.

He expects Sara to start. To tell him how disappointed she is (it’s clear she is). To forbid him from ever going out again, like the Albines.

She doesn’t.

Instead they sit in oppressive silence.

Finally, Keith breaks.

“Please say something,” he whispers, hands wrapped around the mug for warmth.

Sara stays quiet for another moment. Then-

“I don’t know what to say, Keith.”

Keith worries his bottom lip between his teeth, uncertain.

“I- I tried to guess _anything_. Gambling seemed like a stretch as it was, but it was the only thing that made sense. Maybe you were… I don’t know, in trouble with someone? Maybe you were dealing instead of doing drugs, I had no idea.” She gives a bitter laugh. “But I would have never guessed illegal hover craft racing. That…” she trails off, eyes distant. “That is certainly a new one.”

Keith watches her from under the fringe of his bangs, afraid to really look up from his tea.

She sighs. “I guess- I guess I should start at the basics. Why?” She meets his eyes for the first time since sitting down. “Why racing?”

Keith shakes his head. “It’s not the racing,” he mumbles. “It’s flying.”

“Flying,” Sara repeats, tilting her head slightly.

“I- I just wanted the chance to fly, but it’s… it’s expensive and there isn’t really any place where you can, so I just-” Keith gives up, shrugging.

“Okay, so flying,” she murmurs. “If all you wanted to do was fly, then why the racing? That’s not even something I knew _existed_ around here until tonight. How did you know about it?”

Keith shifts uncomfortably in the chair. “I- a friend. From back when I was with the Albines. I brought up flying to him one time and he found out from his brother that there were hover craft races outside of town. He said that most cities usually had something like it. So I just- asked the right people around here.”

Sara shakes her head, bring up her thumb and forefinger to pinch the bridge of her nose. “Alright then. So, change the question. Why _flying_?”

Keith’s grip tightens on the mug and his shoulders hunch.

“It- it feels like home,” he says.

Sara just watches him, silently prompting him to continue.

Keith takes a deep breath, and continues, “My mom was a fighter pilot. Back before she died, she used to take me out on the hover cycle and we’d fly across the canyon… she was teaching me.” He finally braves looking up at Sara. “It’s one of the few memories I still have of her.”

Sara’s expression softens. “I see. So… flying makes you feel as if you’re somehow- _connected_ to her?”

“I guess? It just- feels right,” Keith says.

Sara takes a sip of her tea as she seems to try and process what he’s told her.

“I can understand what you’re feeling, Keith,” Sara finally says, setting the mug back down. “But you have to understand… what you’re doing- it’s dangerous. Incredibly so.” She pins him with a look. “There’s a _reason_ those races are illegal. Which is another issue all on its own.”

“I haven’t gotten hurt,” Keith protests.

“ _Yet_ ,” Sara points out gently. “You haven’t gotten hurt, yet. But it’s a very real possibility that you could.” She glances down to the cash that Rowan had given him. “People are doing this for money. Those can be pretty high stakes. What happens when someone gets angry on or off the race track?”

Keith looks away at that. He hasn’t really considered it. He’s seen his fair share of dirty tricks, but never any that were done with the _intent_ of hurting him.

“Someone could try and run you off the track or into a wall before you have the chance to pull ahead. Or even corner you after a match. People will do a lot for money,” Sara says severely. “Not to mention if people up top are betting!”

“Isn’t that a risk with anything though?” Keith points out in a small voice.

Sara shakes her head. “Not when there’s nothing to protect you, like laws or police.”

Keith is quiet at that.

“I just want you safe,” Sara tells him in a broken voice. “I know you want something to keep the memory of your mother by, but she wouldn’t have wanted you _endangering_ yourself.” She reaches out, covering his hand with her own. “Please, Keith. Please tell me you’ll stop.”

Keith stares down at their hands and doesn’t say anything.

He just slowly pulls his hand away and places it back in his lap.

And he sits there, his heart in his throat as Sara puts her head in her hands, crying.

This was always going to happen. He can only ever burn the things around him. Never warm them.

 

If he’s honest he expects everything to be a bit more like the Albines’ after that. Bars on the window, locks on the door (maybe they’d shove him into a broom closet and he could call himself Harry Potter), and the threat of police.

But there’s nothing.

He’s not even _grounded_.

Well. Not officially anyway.

(Somehow that makes him feel _worse_.)

From then on he is required to show his siblings his detention slip or a note from a teacher if he is staying after school.

Sometimes Keith does have one. Other times, he forges one. And sometimes, he doesn’t bother at all.

The first time he just shrugs them off, he expects Michael or Sara to be waiting angrily for him at the front door when he gets back from lessons with Rowan.

They aren’t.

There’s just a despondent acceptance that lingers around the house, like cloying smoke.

But the much more obvious change is that now, whenever he tries to leave the house in order to sneak off to the race track, there’s _always_ _something_.

Or more accurately, _someone_.

Sara will ask, “Oh, where are you going Keith?”

And when he responds, “Out for a bit,” Michael will cut in and say, “Oh, that’s a shame, because I really could use your help with-” and it’s always something asinine and clearly in working order. But Keith can’t find a good reason to say no, so instead he just sighs and follows Michael to help fix a perfectly working faucet.

Or sometimes it’s Sara who will say, “Oh, but I was hoping you could help me with the garden.” And when he points out that it’s night, she replies, “Ah, but some of the weeds are tricky. They only really come out then. We’ll have torches, don’t worry.”

Sometimes the excuse is different, but it’s really always the same thing.

Other times, it will be Hailey, and Keith honestly doesn’t know how they got her in on all of this, but she’s _damn_ good at it. Often times she doesn’t even wait for someone to ask him where he’s off to. She just suddenly appears in front of him like the little imp that she is and demands he braid her hair.

“Um, right now?” Keith will ask.

“Yes!” she says.

“But it’s right before bed time,” he tries.

“So? I want my hair braided now!”

When Keith looks to his foster family for help they somehow are all conveniently preoccupied.

“Sara and Ellie know how to braid,” he points out.

She pouts at him. “But neither of them do it as good as you! I want _you_ to braid my hair!”

And, well, really- how is he supposed to say no to that?

At one point he tries to say that he’s visiting a friend.

“Oh?” Sara asks. “Who?”

“Um,” Keith blanks. If he’s being totally honest he hasn’t even bothered to learn the names of anyone in his class. “Carter,” he blurts out the first name that comes to him mind.

“Carter who?”

“Carter…Brown?” he tries.

And then, from the kitchen he hears, “There isn’t a Carter Brown in our school!” from Nicholas, Keith’s twelve year old foster brother who shares a room with along with him and Terry.

“Well, then, that settles it,” Sara says, putting her hands on her hips, “you shouldn’t have any problems cleaning out the attic with me.”

(The attic is spotless. Which in and of itself is kind of insulting, because _really_ , who has a spotless attic? At the very least if he is going to be asked to clean a traditionally dusty place it could do him the favor of actually _being_ filthy.)

When Keith next tries the excuse, he makes sure to take note of the name of someone who is actually _in_ his class.

“Tio Mackey,” Keith says when Michael asks who he is going to visit.

And then, from the couch, Illiana, the only one of Keith’s foster siblings who is in his same grade, says, “Really? Cuz I don’t remember you ever hanging out around Tio, Keith.”

Her smirk is positively devilish.

“Well then, I’m sure Tio will understand if you explain that your foster dad held you back,” Michael says with a wink, putting a hand on Keith’s shoulder and steering him away from the door. “Now let’s go see about that heater.”

(The heater, as it turns out, actually _is_ leaking and in need of repair. Michael however, clearly hadn’t known that beforehand, as he seems quite surprised when they find the leak.)

Keith tries to resort to sneaking out at night again, but it didn’t seem to matter. Someone is almost always there. At the front or back door, or outside the house on the curb. They smile and say something like “looking for some fresh air?” and then lead him back inside within a few minutes.

Keith… doesn’t know what to think of it.

On the one hand it’s annoying. They’re keeping him from racing, from flying.

On the other… it’s almost kind of… _sweet_.

He understands they’re doing it because they care, because they want him to be safe. And they’re never malicious about it, not the way the Albines had been. It’s a bit endearing.

Frustrating. But endearing nonetheless.

 

“I understand if you don’t want to teach me anymore,” Keith says one day after one of his lessons with Rowan, “I know I’m not racing as much as I used to.”

Rowan shrugs. “Eh, I don’t really care to be honest. You still make good money. Besides,” she sighs a bit, looking around, “it’s not like I’ve got much better to do during this time.” She flicks the side of his ear, causing Keith to pull back in protest. “You’re a fun distraction, Keith.”

Keith tries to bite back his smile. From the smile she sends his way however, he doubts he succeeded. Strangely, he’s alright with that.

 

Keith had almost completely forgotten about Jeremy. That, as it turns out, is a crucial mistake.

About a month after Sara had found out about the race track, Jeremy comes up to him during school, swinging an arm over his shoulder and steering him away from the crowd.

“Speed Racer! My main man, buddy!” the older boy babbles as he practically drags Keith into a deserted hallway.

Keith can’t help but tense slightly. He hasn’t really had contact with Jeremy since he sold the earrings. And from the whispers around school in these past few months, that may have been for the best. People have been saying Jeremy’s gotten a bit more… aggressive recently.

The teen even _looks_ different, with one side of his hair shaved, and several additional piercings. His breath _reeks_ of alcohol and cigarettes.

(Though that last one isn’t too new. Just more obvious.)

That doesn’t necessarily mean those rumors are true, but still, it’s disconcerting, and Keith eyes him warily.

“What do you want?” Keith asks as he tries to throw Jeremy’ arm off.

“Remember those favors you owe me?” Jeremy hedges, and Keith can’t help but feel pinned.

He had hoped that the boy wouldn’t try to collect on those until after he was gone.

“Well,” the older boy continues, “I decided to cut you a deal, and roll those two little favors into one decent favor. Pretty sweet, huh?”

Keith wants to tell him to fuck off and leave him alone, but… he had made a promise.

“Fine,” Keith says with a sigh. “What do you want me to do?”

“So look,” Jeremy says, leaning into Keith’s space, “I hear from some pretty reliable sources that you’re pretty slick during those races of yours. Fastest they’ve ever seen, they say. Winning big. That’s pretty impressive.”

“So?” Keith asks.

“ _So_ ,” Jeremy stresses, “I’m asking you to be my driver.”

Keith frowns. “Your driver? For what?”

“You see,” Jeremy starts, for some reason not bothering to answer Keith directly, “a friend of mine loaned me one of those sweet hover bikes. They’re fast, and don’t leave tracks. Not to mention this specific vehicle isn’t exactly licensed, so there’s that’s an added bonus. And I need someone to fly it for me.”

“Why?” Keith asks again.

“Let’s just say I’ll be a bit preoccupied. And I need someone who’s _fast_.”

Keith pulls away from Jeremy, brow drawing down in frustration. “You’re still not answering me,” he says angrily. “What do you need a driver for?”

Jeremy slinks closer to him again, looking a bit like a wounded animal stalking its prey.

(Keith doesn’t know if that makes him less of a threat, or more of one).

“Don’t you worry your pretty little head about that, Keithy. The favor just entails you driving. That’s all you need to know.”

Keith stands his ground, glaring up at the older boy. “I’m not agreeing to do something when I don’t know what it is. So either tell me, or I walk away.”

Jeremy gives a hallow laugh, and Keith resolves that it does _not_ send a chill down his spine. “You’ll walk, huh? Well that’s a real shame. I guess the police will be getting that little tip about an illegal race track down by Old Lepire then.”

Keith’s eyes narrow, and he and Jeremy stare one another down, Jeremy practically daring Keith to call his bluff.

But Keith… Keith knows what that track means to some people. People like Rowan. People like him.

“Fine,” he spits. “I’ll do your stupid favor.”

“Great!” Jeremy practically crows, abruptly taking a step back. “Oh, I knew I could count on you, Speedy! Now,” he lowers his voice, launching into his instructions, “I need you to meet me at the park on Eleventh Rue this Friday at 9 p.m. Wear black, nothing distinct. So leave your MCR shirt at home or turn it inside out. Got it?”

“Yeah, fine, whatever,” Keith grumbles.

“Great! I’ll see you then, James!” Jeremy says, clapping him on the back and then turning on heel and strutting away.

Keith watches him with a furrowed brow.

“My name is Keith,” he mumbles under his breath as he stomps back into the main hall.

 

 

As Keith tries to walk out of the house Friday night, undetected, Hailey catches him.

“Keeiittthhh,” she whines. “Braid my hair!”

Keith shakes her off. “Not this time, Hailey. I have somewhere important to be.”

“Like where?” the six year old asks.

“Just- somewhere, okay,” Keith says, unable to come up with a better reason on the spot. He really should have thought this through a bit better.

“But Keith,” she begins, pouting.

“No,” Keith cuts her off. “I said _no_ , Hailey, okay so just- back off!”

Hailey draws back at his sudden outburst, her eyes watering.

Keith feels horrible.

But he’s got a job to do, so he just sighs and looks away.

“I’ll- I’ll braid your hair tomorrow,” he mutters, and walks out the door, hyper aware of his foster family’s eyes on him.

When he gets to the park, Jeremy is there waiting for him.

“Flyboy, you made it!” Jeremy says. “Glad to see you on time. Here.” He shoves something into Keith’s hands.

Keith glances down and finds himself holding a full face black helmet with a red visor.

“What’s this for?” Keith asks, skeptical.

He’s never bothered to wear a helmet before. He doubts driving around town would be any more dangerous than racing.

“It’s for you,” Jeremy says. “Safety first and all that.”

Keith sighs in annoyance, but does as Jeremy requests, fitting the helmet over his head and buckling it.

“Good, now just make sure to keep that on until we’re done,” Jeremy says. “And I mean that. Visor down and all. No taking it off, even for a moment.”

Keith glares at him and snaps, “Fine,” as he flips down the visor.

“Excellent!” Jeremy claps his hands together and then grabs another helmet off of the hover bike, securing it over his own head. “Now, I need you to drive us to the convenient store on Ninth. I’ll give you directions. And don’t worry about getting caught. I scouted this route beforehand; there shouldn’t be any cops on patrol in the area.”

Keith climbs on the hover bike and waits for Jeremy to do the same. The older boy situates himself behind Keith easily, then cries, “Off we go, James!”

Keith groans as he revs the engine. “It’s _Keith_!”

It doesn’t take long for them to reach the corner store. It’s small and dimly lit. There looks to only be three or four people inside, including the two employees.

Jeremy tells him to park at the edge of the parking lot, behind the gas station. They are mostly in the shadows.

“Awesome job, kid!” Jeremy says, slapping him on the back hard enough to cause Keith to rock forward. “Now just wait here for me to come back out. But just be ready to take off, fast as you can, as soon as I walk out those doors, got it?”

Keith frowns, something like dread settling itself in his stomach.

“Why? What are you going to do?” Keith asks again.

Jeremy keeps his helmet on as he slips off the bike. “Just worry about your part, Snickers. I’ll worry about mine.”

Keith watches him jog into the corner store, and can’t stop his growing unease. Something about this feels very very wrong.

He had thought that maybe Jeremy needed him to do rounds or something while he was selling marijuana. Which, while not ideal, wasn’t a huge problem. But now… he has no clue what the other boy is doing.

He waits in the shadows in front of the dinky convenient store for about five minutes, and just stares up at the stars.

That’s when he hears shouting.

Keith turns his attention back to the convenient store, and, through the pane glass windows, he can see Jeremy. Standing there, at the front counter, pointing a gun in the cashier’s face.

Keith’s heart drops like a _stone_.

He’s frozen, shell shocked as he watches the older boy wave the weapon at the terrified woman opening the cash register. Keith can’t see the other two people that were in the store.

Oh God, Oh God, Oh God, Oh God, what has he _done?_

Keith stumbles off the bike, still staring at the scene, _horrified_.

_What have I done, what have I done, **whathaveIdone**?_

He can just barely make out yelling, and screaming, and Keith takes a step back in horror- and then the gun goes off- and Keith _runs_.

The loud _Bang!_ , slightly muffled by the glass, echoes behind him like a gavel.

He doesn’t even wait to see what happens, who was hit, if anyone.

He’s too terrified, horrified; it feels like someone is trying to forcibly rip his stomach from his abdomen. His heart is pounding in his throat, he thinks he might be sick, but he can’t stay there, he has to get away, away, _away_.

He runs down some back alley ways, turning and dodging whichever way doesn’t lead to a dead end.

He doesn’t know what will happen to Jeremy. Doesn’t know if the other boy will see that he had run and try to track him down. Would Jeremy try to shoot him? The McAlisters?

Oh God, how had he gotten himself into this?

It feels like his heart is about to burst. Keith’s pretty sure he’s hyperventilating.

He tosses the helmet into an alley dumpster before jumping a fence. He can’t have it. It’s evidence.

Fuck, it’s evidence for a _crime scene_ , he’s been an accomplice in an _armed robbery_.

(Maybe even murder.)

He gets lost, though he doesn’t know how many times. Eventually he finds his way back to the park. There are blisters forming on his feet, but his own pulse is thundering in his ears, and he can’t be bothered to care.

He runs all the way back to the McAlisters’ house.

When he bursts through the back door, he locks it behind himself quickly, pressing his back to it, breathing harsh and unsteady.

 _Oh_ , Keith thinks distantly, _so this is what a panic attack feels like_.

The world is narrow and dark.

Keith’s almost certain he’s about to pass out.

Sara, Michael, and a few of his foster siblings are sitting there at the table, staring back at him in shock.

“Keith?” Sara asks, standing up and taking a step towards him. “Keith what happened? Are you alright?”

And Keith’s not really sure what takes over him, but the second he’s able to focus in on Sara, he throws himself at her, wrapping his arms around her tight, and burying his face into her shoulder. She tenses briefly in surprise.

“I’m sorry,” he sobs incoherently into her shirt, “I’m sorry, _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m_ -”

Keith realizes faintly that he's no longer making sense.

Slowly Sara’s arms loop around him as well, pulling him in closer and rubbing a hand up and down his back soothingly, shushing him gently.

“It’s okay, honey,” she says, humming gently. “It’s going to be okay.”

It takes a while to get Keith to calm down enough to stop hyperventilating. When he does and Sara and Michael ask him if he can explain what had happened, he manages to stammer out the basics of the story.

Both exchange looks, seeming perturbed, but Sara simply rubs his arm soothingly and asks the other kids to get him some tea and a blanket.

Michael leads him to the couch, asking if he would be okay for a bit while he and Sara talk.

Keith just nods, numbly, staring straight ahead at nothing.

Not even a minute after Michael and Sara begin whispering in the kitchen, Hailey (and how is she still awake? She was supposed to be asleep hours ago. Maybe all the noise had woken her up) crawls onto the couch next to him with a brush in hand and asks if she can brush his hair.

Keith doesn’t really have it in him to say no, so for over half an hour, he sits in front of the couch, curled up with a blanket and his head resting on his knees, as his foster sister brushes his hair.

It’s soothing, but it doesn’t diminish the sickening pit in his stomach.

Eventually, Sara and Michael come back out of the kitchen, explaining that they had called the police and Jeremy had already been arrested, and that someone is being rushed to the hospital, but they are expected to be fine.

Keith expects to be dragged off to juvie right there and then, but they assure him that he’s safe and that his only involvement is as a witness.

Keith doesn’t really believe them, but for the time being he lets Sara pull him into another hug.

He waits for the knock on the door. Waits for Sara and Michael to load him into the car and drive him off to the police station.

But neither happen.

And when he goes to school that next Monday, everyone is talking about how Jeremy had been arrested for trying to rob a convenient store and shooting someone. The victim is said to be fine though. A clean shot through the right shoulder.

Keith doesn’t feel any less horrible, but at least he now knows he wasn’t also the cause of someone’s death.

He isn’t sure what this might mean for the race track either. Would Jeremy rat him out for not following through and getting him caught? Had he even made it out of the store before the police came?

He has no way of knowing.

When he next sees Rowan he tells her as much.

The girl’s brown eyes narrow.

“Let’s see that fucker try,” she hisses.

But she promises to keep an eye out for anything that looks like trouble for the track.

The news says that Jeremy pleads guilty and is given five years in juvie.

Something clenches uncomfortably in Keith’s stomach at that, but he refuses to examine it.

 

After that, Keith actively tries racing less.

He still goes to lessons with Rowan, but he often doesn’t try to leave the house as often to go racing. He still participates in about two races a month, and he still wins, but it’s certainly less often than he had been.

Flying still feels amazing, but… he turns twelve not long after everything happened with Jeremy.

That means he only has another month or so before he can apply for the Galaxy Garrison. And he doesn’t want to be any more of an unnecessary burden on the McAlisters than he already is before that time.

He’s caused them enough trouble. The whole Jeremy debacle is proof enough.

So… he tries. He tries to be better, even if it’s for just these next few short months.

 

The week before his birthday, Sara comes into his room asking what he might want.

It hasn’t even been two weeks since “the incident.”

He tells her he doesn’t want anything.

Sara’s eye catches on the jacket he has curled up on his bed.

She reaches over and pulls his mother’s coat into her lap. Keith has to curb the instinct to snatch it away from her.

“What about this?” she asks.

Keith looks at her in confusion. “What about it?”

“You’ve had it since you arrived here,” Sara says, considering the jacket, “but it doesn’t fit you.”

“So?” Keith demands defensively, crossing his arms.

“So,” Sara says, “wouldn’t you like to be able to wear it?”

Keith blinks in surprise at that. He hasn’t really ever thought about it. He’s always carried it with him because it was his mother’s. Not because he really thought he’d ever wear it.

Keith shakes his head. “That’s not why I have it.”

“Oh?” Sara asks. “Why keep it then?”

Keith looks away. “It was my mom’s. From back when she was a fighter pilot.”

Sara hums in understanding.

It’s silent for a moment, and then-

“I could sew it for you,” Sara offers.

Keith’s brow furrows at that. “What?”

“It’s a bit old and it’s a woman’s jacket. I could fix it up a bit, make sure the cloth stays resistant, take it in or out in some places, that sort of thing,” Sara explains.

Keith is already shaking his head. “No, I’ll just grow out of it.”

Sara considers that for a moment. “What if I make it bigger?” she asks. “So that you can wear it when you’re older? That way you don’t have to just keep it tucked away in your bag or your room forever.”

Keith’s knee jerk reaction is to refuse but… he actually hasn’t thought about that. He has always wanted to follow in his mother’s footsteps. If he could actually wear it when he gets older; carry this piece of his mother around his shoulders…

That would be…

“What would you do to it?” Keith asks cautiously.

“Well,” Sara says, “I could widen the stripes here,” she points to the thin white stripes that ran down the arms of the red coat, “and on the back as well. Fix up the sleeves a bit, and maybe widen this part here,” she finishes, indicating to the small bit of yellow that made up the top of the breast pockets on the front of the jacket.

Keith considers it for a moment. “It won’t… ruin it or anything?”

“I shouldn’t think so. But if you want, you can watch me work,” Sara assures him. “That way if you don’t like anything I’m doing, I can just put it back the way it was.”

Keith mulls it over for a moment, then nods tentatively.

Sara smiles back at him warmly.

 

A week after his birthday, Rowan tosses something at his head during practice.

Keith makes a noise of protest, glaring at his instructor as he glances down at what had been thrown at him. He realizes he’s looking at a brand new pair of motorist gloves.

“What are these?” Keith asks, picking them up.

“They’re gloves,” Rowan says, deadpan, and Keith rolls his eyes at her.

“Okay, yeah, but why are you giving them to me?” Keith elaborates.

She shrugs. “I figured after all those callouses, you might want a way to prevent blisters.”

And she isn’t _wrong_. Over the past few months, Keith has gotten numerous blisters on his hands from flying. At this point it happens rarely, considering the callouses he has already built up, but his hands could still be torn raw on occasion.

He looks up at Rowan, confused. But she just prompts him to try them on.

They are black and fingerless. But they’ll protect his palms pretty well. They fit, for lack of a better term, like a glove.

“You’ll probably have to buy some new ones down the line,” Rowan says with a shrug, “but I figured they should work for now.”

Keith stares at his hands for a moment, turning them this way and that as he examines the gloves in awe.

Eventually he looks back up at Rowan, and smiling shyly says, “Thank you.”

She gives him a slight smile. “Happy Birthday, kid.”

Keith learns to love them. So much so that he never takes them off. There’s something comforting in wearing the gloves, in having that anchor.

And they cover the last of the scars that Greg had left as well.

 

The past few months have been…nice.

Rowan assures him that she doesn’t care about how often he races (not anymore, since she considers his dues more than paid), and his foster family continues to try and be supportive without smothering him.

Even school, despite still being tense, has gotten better. Most of the teacher’s seem to catch on to the things that could set off Keith’s temper, and most kid stop trying to mess with him altogether.

Sara keeps her promise, and at the end of each week, she lets him check her progress on his mother’s jacket. And… it actually seems to be turning out alright.

At one point she asks if he’d like her to add more fabric. She explains that she will have to rehem the bottom regardless, so while doing so she could simply add more length.

“It’s a woman’s jacket,” she says, “so it will most likely be short on you when you finish growing.”

But Keith declines, saying, “No, it’s fine.”

She simply inclines her head slightly, but keeps to her word and doesn’t change it.

For the first time in a long time, things feel normal. Settled.

Keith almost feels bad that he will be leaving them soon.

But he had never planned on staying. And he knows better at this point than to get attached to any particular place or family.

This has been a nice break, but it was never going to be permanent.

And he tells himself, whenever he thinks about no longer braiding Hailey’s hair, or Sara’s kind eyes, or Michael’s steady patience, or training with Rowan, that he won’t miss it.

It feels like a lie, but it’s all Keith has to hold on to.

 

Eventually, a little over a month after his birthday, the jacket is finished.

“Sorry it’s a bit late,” Sara says, laughing. “There’s just not enough time in the day.”

But Keith doesn’t care. The red is brighter, the white stripes were thicker, cleaner, and the back of the jacket has a white V with a line going down the center. The yellow on the breast has been expanded into thick lines, the collar has been whitened and stiffened again, and there is a deeper, darker red that made up a thick strip of the hem of the jacket and its sleeves.

Something warm spreads through his body, all the way to his toes, and his throat feels tight with an emotion he can’t place.

“If you still want me to adjust anything just let me-”

Sara is cut off as Keith throws his arms around her, the jacket still clutched in his hands.

It’s the only other time he has hugged her besides the night of Jeremy’s robbery.

“Thank you,” he says quietly. “It’s perfect.”

Sara just smiles and hugs him back.

                                      

But eventually, the time comes for the Galaxy Garrison application to be filled out. Keith spends the week working at it, making sure that his answers are perfect, and that everything is in order with his grades. It’s sent off the day before it’s due.

He isn’t sure he’ll get in. He has good grades, but they aren’t anything spectacular. Not to mention his notable documented ‘discipline’ issues.

He hopes though.

Keith keeps it quiet for as long as he can. He checks the mail box every morning for nearly three weeks, before anyone else can get to it. And then, one day, there it is.

A letter from the Galaxy Garrison.

Keith runs back upstairs and rips into it in the safety of the bathroom.

_Dear Mr.Keyong,_

_We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted into the Galaxy Garrison program._

_You have been accepted into the Galaxy Garrison program._

Keith stops reading as soon as his eyes land on that word.

 _Accepted_.

Keith can’t stop himself from letting out a slight laugh that perhaps sounds a bit hysterical, as he leans against the bathroom wall and slides down.

This is- this is everything he’s ever wanted. He would finally, finally get a chance at becoming a real pilot! Of flying like his mother! At being a part of something _he_ chose.

He quickly scans the rest of the letter, taking in the details and formalities laid out in the text.

Enclosed, it says, is an acceptance form. All Keith has to do is fill it out and mail it back.

However, when Keith flips to the paper _behind_ the acceptance form, he finds a second letter.

And Keith feels his high immediately dissipate.

The letter lays out that as a ward of the state, he can choose to hand over his legal custody to whatever militant branch he has chosen. All they need to begin the process, it explains, is a signature from him and his current legal guardian.

Keith’s heart clenches.

He had known this was coming. This is what he had planned for, _been_ planning for, since before Bailey after all.

 _This isn’t home_ , he reminds himself. _This was never going to **be** home_.

And he had known that from the beginning. Nothing ever lasted, not for him. Not even ‘family’. Is he really wrong for wanting to choose to leave himself, instead of waiting to be left or forced away?

Besides. The McAlister’s are a lot of things. But they aren’t family.

(He shuts out the voice that whispers ‘But what about Sara, or Hailey, or Michael, or Rowan, or-‘)

He doesn’t have a family anymore. He should have accepted that from the start, and moved on (then maybe he could have saved himself the heart ache).

All he has is his mother’s legacy, her coat, and his father’s dagger.

And he plans to hold on to those few things as tight as he can.

He signs the papers.

 

That night, after dinner, Keith stands in the doorway of the kitchen, waiting for Sara to notice him from her spot at the table.

“Oh, Keith,” she says, smiling slightly when she finally looks up from what appears to be bills. “Can I do something for you?”

Keith approaches her slowly, then sets the envelope down on the table in front of her.

Her smile turns confused, and then slips altogether as she opens the envelope, her eyes widening. She looks up at Keith in surprise, but he doesn’t meet her eyes. There’s a long, drawn out silence as she scans the letter, and Keith watches from the corner of his eye how her brow draws down, and her eyes turn sad.

When she flips to the final page, a bit too quickly, to see the already signed signature of custody form, she stops, and sets the letter down. Sara seems to hang her head in defeat, bringing her hands up to her face, and staying there for a long moment.

Eventually, once she’s gathered herself she says, “I’m- I’m very happy for you, Keith. The Galaxy Garrison is a difficult program to get into, but-” her words seem to stick in her throat. “Keith, are you really sure this is what you want?”

Keith still doesn’t look at her, tracing the linoleum pattern on the floor with his eyes. “I told you,” he says quietly, “my mom was a fighter pilot. I- I want the chance to follow in her footsteps.”

Sara takes a shuddering breath.

“Keith,” she says slowly, “I- If you really want to join the Galaxy Garrison, I won’t question that. That’s your decision. But… this form puts you in legal custody of the U.S. state. You don’t have to do that! You can still join the Garrison with us as your legal guardians.”

“It’s-better. This was,” Keith says haltingly.

She looks heartbroken, and Keith can’t bear it. The last thing he wants to do is make Sara cry.

This is supposed to make things _better_. It _will_. Sara just… doesn’t realize it yet.

“What happens if you leave the Garrison?” she asks. “Military takes training and discipline, years of it. What if you get there and realize it’s not what you wanted?”

“I won’t,” Keith says automatically.

“If you _did_ ,” Sara stresses, “then you would be back in the lottery.”

Keith stays quiet.

Sara reaches out to grab Keith’s hand, looking up at him sadly. “Keith, you are not a burden to us. _Please_ understand that.”

Keith feels something knot in his throat, and breathing suddenly seems difficult.

Because- yes. He is. He knows it. Everyone does.

He’s disobedient, angry, and antagonistic. He isn’t worth the trouble he causes He’s just a fire, out of control, waiting to burn anything in its path.

Instead of any of that, he just pulls his hand away slowly and says, “Please, Sara.”

She looks down at the papers. “This is what you want?” she asks, voice wavering.

Keith nods.

And so she signs.

 

The upcoming month feels somber. Not tense, like it had been. The rubber band has already snapped. Now all that was left were two over stretched pieces of rubber that couldn’t hold much of anything together.

Keith tells Rowan he is leaving. She had just sighs and says, “I don’t blame you, kid. Best you get out of this town while you can.”

They say goodbye a week before he is due to leave.

He races one last time, for old time’s sake.

He doesn’t need the money anymore. He leaves the thousand or more dollars in Sara’s jewelry box. It can’t ever replace something like a family heirloom, but it feels like the least he owes them.

Going through school feels as if he is dragging himself through mud the entire month. It’s tiring.

Eventually though, the month is up, and there is a car outside, waiting to take him to the airport.

Hailey cries and demands he braid her hair one last time, so he does.

Keith allows Sara to hug him as hard as she wants, and doesn’t say anything when she whispers. “We love you. Please be safe.”

Michael just claps him on the shoulder and gives him a reassuring smile. It seems weak. Keith appreciates it anyway.

He tells himself he won’t cry.

He manages to keep that promise until he’s curled up on the polyester backseat, being driven away from the McAlister family home, and he suddenly understands that he will most likely never see them again.

 

And so Keith arrives, twelve years old, at the Galaxy Garrison with just his mother’s old jacket, a letter, and his father’s dagger.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this story is mainly just a way for me to get head canons out, and explore the characters' backgrounds. You certainly don't have to agree with everything here (i.e. I know that Keith is often head cannoned as gay and not bi), but this is just my interpretation of things. 
> 
> For things that may not be clear: It's implied that borders are pretty open between countries, and that the UN controls the military in general, with individual branches. The Garrison in this story is a space military branch controlled by the UN and housed by the US. Due to the nature of the service, state wards (foster kids, orphans, etc.) can technically become the ward of whatever state they choose to transfer into when going into the military. The Garrison however, takes people up to age 16, depending on the program. (Think of it like a boarding school. You can go when you're younger, and there are programs for that, but most kids are older). 
> 
> I also don't pretend to think that this is the character's actual backstories. This is just my interpretation/extrapolation on the universe. 
> 
> If you have any questions, feel free to ask me! Constructive Criticism is always welcome.


	2. Ordeal by Water

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warnings: Strong Language, Drowning, implied/referenced child sexual abuse.
> 
> If you have any questions about these warnings please feel free to message me.
> 
> This story is set in Cuba. Much like with Quebec, Canada, I know little to nothing about the country. I tried to do some general research on specifics (things like meals for example and town names), but I can't claim to know the culture of Cuba. Much like before, it is assumed that the characters are all bilingual, but they are most likely primarily speaking Spanish. As a disclaimer: Due to the setting of the story, I do not claim to represent the current socioeconomic/sociopolitical climate in current day Cuba. 
> 
> Lance is portrayed as Cuban in this story, with his family being based off of the picture we saw of them in the second episode. I know a decent amount about Mexican and Mexican-American culture, but again, that does not necessarily translate to Cuban culture. I borrowed a few things of what I know (things like titles for family members), but if those things, or anything else, are incorrect, please feel free to let me know. I cannot claim to accurately represent Cuba or it's people, but if anything I have written or done is stereotyping or white washing, please let me know, and I will do my best to fix it.
> 
> I hope you enjoy the read!

 

Lance is five years old when he nearly dies.

They’re in the pool, splashing and giggling, while the adults are eating freshly grilled fritas on the deck, laughing about something that adults are supposed to laugh at. It’s one of their biannual ‘family reunions’, with some of their more distant relatives all coming together at his abuelita’s house down in Crádenas

It’s bustling, and full of laughter and life, and Lance is honestly thrilled just to finally have kids his own age to play with.

He had begged his mother on the way up to not make him wear floaties. He told her that they looked ridiculous, and he didn’t want to be laughed at. His mother agreed reluctantly, simply instructing him to stay in the shallow water.

Lance has no issue doing just that. Most of his cousins his age can’t swim into the deep end either, so he’s not missing much.

It’s a decision that Lance realizes may have been a mistake.

When the adults call them to eat, most of the kids scramble out of the pool, and run to the other side, eager for food. Lance makes up the rear of the line, and tries to push forward a bit, hopping up and down in excitement.

In all the commotion however, some of the adults don’t notice when they rock back, and accidently knock into Lance, sending the five year old careening into the water.

Lance hits the surface mid yelp, and accidently takes in a mouthful of water as a result. He chokes as he sinks down, and down, and down.

He realizes, belatedly (as he’s still trying to get over the shock of losing his balance), that he’s fallen into the deep end of the pool.

And he doesn’t know how to swim.

Lance panics, mouth full of chlorine, and legs kicking uselessly as he tries to turn himself around, towards the top of the pool. But all he ends up doing is further disorienting himself. He finally figures out which way is up when he hits the bottom of the pool.

Lance is trying not to take in any more water, but it’s difficult. He’s trying to suppress his natural instinct to gasp, but small noises still come from him as he tries to push his way towards the top.

But it isn’t enough. He can’t kick hard enough, or push himself with his arms just right, and he’s already taken in too much water, and everything is beginning to seem a bit hazy.

He fights towards the surface, and he can see the sun, can almost taste the fresh air- when his body seems to give out on him.

Lance tries to scream, to call out for help. But all it does is make his lungs constrict. He desperately wants his mother or father to save him, desperately wants to be held by them. He’s scared, he realizes.

He’s scared and he’s drowning.

His eyes turn glassy as he begins to sink again, and-

And then there’s a large splash and arms wrapping around his waist, tugging him to the surface.

He gasps for breathe as his head breaks the water, coughing, and whimpers, “Mama.”

He’s pulled out of the water, onto the ledge of the pool and laid on his back. There’s pressure on his chest.

When Lance finally manages to blink his vision back into focus, he sees Marisol, his older sister, staring down at him with concern. Her mouth is moving, but Lance can only hear a distant buzzing as he continues to gasp like a fish out of water.

Mari slaps him on the back, and Lance coughs up the last bit of water that he had swallowed.

And then he sees his mother’s face, suddenly right in front of him, reaching out to him, panicked and relieved all at once.

Lance lets out a horrendous, heaving sob and throws himself at her, crying into her arms as she rocks him slowly, whispering comforting words to him through her own tears.

He realizes that the rest of his family has crowded around and is letting out murmurs of relief and sorrow and apology, but he can’t be bothered to listen.

He’s too happy to be safe in his mother’s arms.

 

Lance is taken inside after that, given a change of clothes and a blanket. The party ends not long after, the mood soured.

He can’t seem to sleep. So Lance sits on the bed, wrapped in his blanket, staring blankly at the wall in front of him.

That night, after his cousins had all come in and claimed their own bed, and his mother had kissed him on the forehead and said “I love you,” eyes still watery, Marisol opens the door.

Lance stares back at her, surprised and uncertain.

“Come on,” his sister says, taking him by the hand and leading him away from the bedroom.

Mari, at fifteen years old, is a trained lifeguard and young surfing champion; she always seems to be the most at home in the water.

So really, Lance shouldn’t be surprised when he finds himself standing in front of his abuelita’s pool again.

Lance wraps his arms around himself, withdrawing slightly as Marisol beckons him past the gate, shaking his head.

“Come on,” she says impatiently. “I’m going to teach you how to swim.”

“I can’t,” Lance croaks. “I can’t do it.”

Marisol steps towards him, frowning. “Look, no little brother of mine is going to be afraid of the water, understand?”

Lance just makes a wounded sound in the back of his throat, moving away again.

Mari’s deep blue eyes, so much like his own, soften. “Lance, you can’t live life afraid of things, okay? If you want it to get better, you have to face it. And I’d rather you face it now, then let you be afraid for who knows how long.”

Lance shakes his head again, more desperate this time.

Mari frowns, but leans down to his height. “I’ll be _right here_ with you. I promise, I won’t let anything bad happen,” she says, holding out her hand.

Lance considers her carefully. Mari _is_ very good in the water… and she had been the one to save him.

He’s still scared, but his sister is right. He doesn’t _want_ to be. They practically live on the ocean. What will he be if he’s scared of the water is entire life?

So he nods tentatively and takes her hand.

They start out slow; Mari lets him wade into the water at his own pace, keeping hold of his hand the entire time. She lets him get over his fear inch by inch.

Eventually, she let’s go of his hand, and Lance panics a bit, grabbing for it.

“You’re okay, hermanito,” Mari assures him. “You can stand. I’m still right here.”

She has him practice going under, and holding his breath, starting with simply tilting him back into the shallow water, her hand at his back, almost like a pseudo baptism, and then working their way up. She smiles at him, when he ducks under himself and stays cross legged on the concrete floor of the pool, with his head a few centimeters under water, before coming back up.

Marisol teaches him how to tread water, and Lance follows her movements in the shallow end, before being lead a bit deeper, so that he can give it a real try.

He flails a bit at first, but with his older sister right there, Lance is able to keep himself afloat. When he realizes that he’s swimming, really and truly swimming, he can’t help but laugh in delight.

Marisol smiles at him. “There, the water isn’t so scary, is it?”

Lance shakes his head tentatively.

He learns how to tread water, doggy paddle, and swim under the surface. How to kick and push his arms if he ever goes under again, and he even learns a little bit about proper swim technique.

He’s no expert by the time Mari and he finally leave the water, but he feels more confident. There’s something about being able to control his body in the water that makes him feel powerful.

After hours in the pool, splashing about with his older sister, learning and slowly regaining his self-assurance, Lance’s skin is pruned slightly.

But as they step out, he looks up at Marisol and asks, “Can we do this again?”

She smiles down at him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “Of course, Lancito. I’d love to teach you.”

 

Lance learns to love water, learns to love the feeling of the water pushing beneath him, making way for him, learns to love how things look with that blue tint, learns to love the confidence that comes with it. Lance also learns to love the ocean. It’s scary, and big, and salty, but he loves every inch of it.

He loves what it is to his family- that every morning they can walk out their front door, and all of them, his parents, his aunt and uncle, his grandparents, and his siblings (barring Anna Marie), just enjoy their time together on the sand.

And he learns to love the feeling that comes with spending time with his older sister in the water, in how she teaches him, acts as his safety net.

He also learns to resent it.

Because-

“Oh, Lance, you’re learning to be such a good swimmer, just like your sister!”

And he can’t help but feel a bit upset about that. Because no, he’s not learning to swim just like anyone. He’s learning to swim like himself! As himself.

But then again, that isn’t the only area where his siblings’ accomplishments (or cousins’ or aunts’ or-) are seen as a precursor to his own.

Lance can’t really say he ever gets used to it though.

Because, despite however many years may pass- he still feels like nothing’s ever really _his_.

But for the time being, it’s swimming, and it’s Marisol, and Lance loves it, but there’s a seed of bitterness planted there, and its roots are pretty deep.

 

When Lance is six, and officially joins grade school, he’s labelled as a ‘difficult’ child.

He’s loud, he always seems to have too much energy, he has trouble focusing on the lessons, he fidgets too much- the list goes on and on.

His teachers try to give him things to do with his hands, or put in him time outs, or have a teacher’s aide monitor him, but the results never seem to satisfy anyone.

His parents do their best to help him.

“He’s not trying to be difficult,” his mother tells the teacher one day when they’re called to meet with the woman, “Lance is a very sweet boy. He just has a lot of energy. He’s used to running around.”

They tell him they know it’s tough, but could he please try a little harder?

And Lance does, he tries, but it still gets him nowhere.

It feels strangely hopeless, and makes Lance want to cry, but it also makes him angry on some level. Because he’s _trying_ , he really is. But that doesn’t seem to matter.

And when Lance is told to sit in the corner _again_ during recess, Lance wonders what the point of trying even was.

 

He’s seven when they tell him that yes, he really is trying his best, and _no_ , it’s _not_ his fault.

The doctors (or something? Lance isn’t really all that sure. His parents call them ‘doctor’ but they don’t wear white lab coats or put a wooden stick in his mouth) tell his parents that he has something called ADHD. Which, apparently, affects how you pay attention.

And some other, not so minor, things.

They start trying to deal with it.

And it’s- tiring. Lance doesn’t really have another word for it.

They try to teach him techniques for concentrating and working better, but he often forgets them or finds himself unable to follow the instructions correctly.

They say it’s getting better, that it will take time, and that he’s young, but Lance isn’t sure.

His parents, after finding out, try to be supportive, and patient, helping him remember the doctors’ advice, and apologizing for the trouble he had at school. It’s a consolation, but it doesn’t do much to fix the problem.

Teachers still express frustration. Now, there’s little to no time spent in the corner, but there are multiple warnings, and exasperated sighs.

Lance doesn’t wilt as much under their irritation, but it still stings.

Funnily enough, it seems _Marisol_ is the one who comes up with the best solution.

 

Lance is seven years old, when his sister first starts teaching him how to surf.

He’s learned more about swimming in the ocean, and being safe, and he’s watched Mari from afar for years now alongside the rest of his family.

So when his sister offers to teach him how to surf, he’s _ecstatic_.

To Lance’s disappointment they don’t start out in the water, but instead on the beach, while Marisol teaches him the basics of how to paddle and get up on the board.

It seems boring at first, but Lance quickly tires after working towards balance and form for so long.

Eventually, they get to the water, and even managing to stand up on the board in the shallows as it turns out, is no easy task.

It takes well over a week before Lance is actually allowed to try anything that even resembles _real_ surfing.

But it works out well. He spends time with his sister, he manages to stay focused on what she teaches him, and when he gets home, and even for part of the next day, depending, he’s tired out and he doesn’t feel quite so much like he’s buzzing in his own skin.

It’s an arrangement that Lance is perfectly fine with.

 

After so much time, it feels as if the water, the beach, the ocean, become a part of him.

And how could it not? It was such an integral part of his life, his home, and his _family_.

Lance comes to not only love the beach, but Varadero in its entirety. The boardwalk, the smell of salt in the air, the seagulls, the greasy food joints, and the garlic knots.

Lance learns to love fishing with his abuela and abuelo, despite it seeming boring at first.

They always told the best stories.

And Lance learns to love boating, as his papa and Tio Manuel take him out on the ocean, and place their hands over his own on the wheel and instruct him on how to turn and move the craft.

But, most importantly, Lance _loves_ surfing.

He loves the time he spends with Marisol, learning, and watching as she teaches him how to steady himself, how to tell if a wave is good for riding, and shows him new moves or advanced techniques, telling him all about her competitions.

It all feels so natural out on the water, so perfect.

 

Life however, doesn’t just take place on the ocean. And life outside of the beach, is a bit more complicated.

Lance’s family is big, he knows that, it’s not exactly uncommon. Technically they (his parents and his siblings) have a house to themselves. But the smaller houses on either side of them belong to his maternal grandparents and his aunt and uncle. Despite the separate living quarters, it’s rare for them to remain apart for any amount of time.

Dinners are often had together, weekends are spent together, and it’s common for Lance and Charlie, being the youngest of the family, to be passed from house to house when Marisol isn’t available.

And that isn’t counting the times that Lance’s eldest sister, Anna Marie comes down to visit from college, or the times that his father’s side of the family come down from Cárdenas or Colón.

The end result is that their home was often bustling with more people than it can really hold, always buzzing with energy and warmth and-

And sometimes Lance feels like he’s lost in the crowd, like he’s in a sea of faces, and his just doesn’t warrant any lingering.

It would be wrong of him to say that he felt invisible or ignored, but- his family is busy. And there are a lot of people to love. A lot of people to care about.

There is only so much attention that his parents could pay him in such a large family.

And Lance tries not to feel bitter about it, tries to not feel ignored, because he knows that’s selfish, but every time he hears-

“No honey, Charlie is practicing in the garage, you can’t go in there right now.”

-or-

“I’m sorry, Lancito, your Tio Mannie needs his garden tended, and I promised I’d help.”

-or-

“Mijo, I’d love to, but I’m supposed to drive your abuelos to the pot luck tonight.”

-or some variation of-

“Your hermana’s boyfriend is coming over tonight, I need you here.”

It wears on him a bit.

Because he understands that everyone is busy, that there’s a lot to accommodate, but he feels like he has to fight to _earn_ his right to be heard above the crowd of his own family. Like he has to scrape and claw for even a scrap of attention in his home.

And it tears at him.

Because he _loves_ them so, so much, and he wants them to love him just as much.

And he doesn’t know how to fix it.

So instead, he leaves it be, and sulks in silence.

At the very least, Marisol is often willing to play board games or take him swimming when she isn’t otherwise occupied or they aren’t already training.

 

Lance finds ways to satisfy his want for attention in other areas.

Particularly, in school.

He still does his best to concentrate, he does _want_ to do well, but over the past year he’s been bothered less by being labelled as a ‘problem’ or a ‘nuisance’ because, well, at least then the teacher’s attention was on _him_.

And even better, Lance learns that he can draw his _classmates’_ attention as well.

He tells himself that it isn’t desperate or even a petty desire for a spot light, that it’s natural they pay attention to him because he _is_ ‘cool’ and ‘funny.’

Looking back, Lance is certain that he was painfully obvious from the beginning in vying for his classmates’ attention.

But at the time it doesn’t matter to him that he seems to be left on the outskirts during play time, or that few of his ‘friends’ talk to him much outside of class or invite him places. It only matters that they pay attention to him when he wants them to.

Eventually though, vying for the spotlight inevitably leads Lance to doing something regrettable.

 

He’s nine years old, and there’s a group of boys in the back of the class who are egging him on, encouraging him with delight to turn his attention to the class’s ‘tattle tale,’ Tori González.

Lance isn’t particularly fond of embarrassing people; he doesn’t typically get much enjoyment out of it (it’s usually much easier to just pretend to embarrass himself). But the boys behind him feel like an oppressive presence, and Lance doesn’t want to say no, doesn’t want them to drop their interest in him and turn to someone else. Besides, the girl _is_ being pretty rude. She kind of deserves it.

So when the teacher next calls on her, for an answer about the biology of reptiles, and she says, “Snakes often have very large mouths so that they can swallow their prey whole,” Lance raises his voice, shouting to the class, “They’re not the only things with a big mouth, culebra!”

The girl immediately turns bright red and spins to face him, a retort undoubtedly already on her tongue. But the teacher just calls, “Mr. Alverez! If you were not called on, then your input is not needed,” in a bored tone.

The entire class is snickering, and the girl turns back around slowly, her ears burning as she sits down again. When Lance glances behind him, the boys from before are laughing and giving him a thumbs up.

Lance can’t help but feel validated at that.

 

Lance continues like that for the rest of the week. Either tossing small paper balls at the back of the girl’s head or saying something whenever she spoke up in class.

The other boys seem to enjoy it, but after a few days, some of the effect seems to wear off. They start to lose interest.

And Lance feels a bit lost at that. Wasn’t he doing this because they wanted him to? Because they thought it was funny?

Maybe, Lance figures, he just needs to up his game a bit.

The next Tuesday during school, when Lance stands next to the girl on their way to recess, he suddenly clamps his thumb and forefinger over his nose, and yells, “Phew-wee, Pepe Le Pew, when was the last time you had a bath?!”

The class erupts into laughter at that, all of them turning to stare at the red faced girl.

Lance laughs along with them, but when he looks to the girl again, his smile slips.

For the first time, he notices that she doesn’t just look mad or embarrassed. She seems… upset.

Lance doesn’t get much time to think about it before they are being pushed off to the playground.

But as soon as they get out on the open field, it seems to be open season on the girl. Lance watches from his peripheral vision as for the next thirty minutes jokes are passed around and called to the girl about her smelling- people hold their nose whenever they’re near her and call her Pepe, or make a show of avoiding her.

Lance suddenly feels his stomach sink, and he feels… ashamed.

He hadn’t thought much of it at the time. What did a little teasing hurt after all? He often got people to laugh at him on _purpose_. It never hurt _him_.

But this seems… mean. Genuinely _mean_ , and- and he’s responsible for it.

The thought is uncomfortable, and Lance suddenly feels as if he’s swallowed too much sea water.

Ten minutes before recess is set to end, the girl seems to break, and dashes off the playground, tears in her eyes.

Lance tears off after her, without so much as a second thought. He doesn’t really know what he should say or do, but… he just knows he needs to do _something_.

Lance ends up following her into the girl’s bathroom on the 4th grade wing, which is otherwise empty, barring the girl’s shaking sobs.

He walks slowly towards the back stall, where the crying is coming from, and stops right outside the door, knocking hesitantly.

“Go away!” comes the muffled cry.

Lance pauses, considering if perhaps he should just leave her alone. But leaving things be has never been his strong suit , so he knocks again.

“I said go away!” The girl yells, this time wrenching open the stall door to come face to face with Lance.

She stops as she realizes who’s on the other side of the stall.

“Hi,” Lance says timidly, raising a hand.

The girl’s face is tear streaked and blotchy, and she stares at him with red eyes. Then her shock fades to anger, and she shoves him.

“What do you want?” she demands, but the effect is ruined by how thin and thready her voice is. “This is the girls’ bathroom; you’re not supposed to be here.”

Lance stumbles back with the push, but keeps his feet. He doesn’t fight back. He just looks to the ground, feeling shame in his stomach, hot and heavy.

He deserves her anger after all.

“I know,” he says quietly. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Why?” she sneers. “So you can make fun of me for something else?”

He shakes his head. “No… I didn’t mean to make you cry.” He meets her gaze. “I’m sorry. I was a jerk.”

The girl sniffles, rubbing at her nose. “Yeah. You’re a dumb, awful, jerk,” she says.

She takes a step back, leaning against the bathroom wall, and sliding down to a sitting position, wrapping her arms around her knees as she wipes at her eyes.

Lance wonders again if that should be his cue to leave, and shifts uncomfortably, his shoes squeaking on the concrete floor of the bathroom.

But she hasn’t closed to door on him, or demanded he leave again, so Lance takes that as encouragement.

“I deserve that,” Lance admits, taking a step forward.

She eyes him distrustfully, and her gaze is still red and watery, but Lance is happy to see that she doesn’t appear to still be crying.

After a moment of silence, Lance slowly sits down across from her, trying to give her enough time to protest him doing so.

She doesn’t.

Finally, Lance breaks the silence and says, “I- I wasn’t trying to be mean. I just- I did it because some guys thought it would be funny.”

“Do you always do what other people want?” She asks, snidely, glaring at the far wall of the bathroom over his shoulder.

Lance considers that for a moment. “Well, not always, but… usually?”

She turns her glare back to him, and he flinches.

There’s another pregnant pause.

“You were laughing too,” she says, but there’s little bite behind it. Instead she sounds sad.

Lance looks at the ground, tracing the dirt and grime with his fingertips. “Well, yeah, but only because I thought it didn’t matter.”

“Why wouldn’t it have mattered?” She asks, throwing her hands wide. “You embarrassed me in front of the _entire class_!”

“Well you were snitching on people!” Lance says defensively. “It was- it was supposed to be justice or something like that! Like Batman

The girl gave a watery snort. “Like Batman,” she mocks to herself, grabbing a piece of toilet paper and wiping her nose. “Well I’m not the Joker, and you’re _definitely_ not Batman.”

“Hey!” Lance protests.

“Batman stands up for people,” she says angrily, “he doesn’t try and knock them down because of some petty playground fight.”

Lance closes his mouth at that and looks away again. Because- yeah, okay, she has a point.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats again.

“Whatever,” she says, pulling her knees close to her chest. “It’s not like it matters now. Now _everyone’s_ going to call me Pepe, or culebra, or snitch-” she breaks off as her breath hitches, and Lance watches in horror as tears begin to stream down her face again. “And i-it’s not like I had any friends before this, and now there’s no way anyone will want to be my friend _now_ ,” she hiccups.

Lance feels something crumble in his chest

What is he supposed to do? How can he fix this?

It’s not like he could demand that everyone stop calling her names; that wouldn’t do anything.

“Why couldn’t you have just ignored me like everyone else?” she asks, burying her face in her knees.  

Lance watches her cry and tries to think, think, think- then it hits him. The solution is so simple that Lance feels something warm start flowing in his chest, like a damn that had suddenly been broken.

“I’ll be your friend,” he offers excitedly, rocking onto his knees, so that he’s closer to her.

Her hiccups pause for a second, and she glances up at him from under her dark hair. “Wh-what?”

“I want to be your friend,” Lance says, offering his hand out to her.

“Why?” She asks, her crying quieting again.

Lance shrugs, keeping his hand extended. “I don’t really have any friends either,” he admits, glancing away for a moment. When he meets her gaze again, his blue eyes are wide and practically gleaming as he says, “But you know, you seem cool. I mean, you know about Batman and stuff, so- let me make this right. Let’s be friends.”

The girl seems to consider him for a long moment, but Lance, for once, is content to wait.

Just as his patience starts to ebb a bit however, and he considers lowering his hand, she reaches out.

“Okay,” she whispers. “We can be friends.”

Lance _beams_.

“I’m Lance by the way,” he says as they shake hands.

“Tori,” she replies, and she’s smiling slightly as well.

Lance feels warm, and it no longer feels like his head is under water.

“By the way, Lance,” Tori says, almost conversationally, as they both pull back to their respective spots on the bathroom floor, “can I tell you something, as your friend?”

Lance blinks in surprise, but nods. “Yeah, sure!”

He’s never really had a _real_ friend before, so he isn’t sure what she might want to tell him.

Her grin turns impish.

“You’re still a jerk,” she says as she stands, smiling widely.

“Hey!” Lance cries in protest, following her out of the bathroom stall, both of them laughing slightly.

It’s the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

 

Lance is nine years old, and he’s started swimming competitions recently. Nothing intense, but plenty competitive. Lance loves it! He doesn’t always win, but he always does well, usually placing in the top of the division.

He loves to hear his family cheer as he makes the laps, loves the smell of chlorine, and loves how powerful he feels.

And Lance is thrilled, because he’s good at it. It gives his family a pause, and for those few hours, their attention is almost entirely devoted to him. It may be selfish, but it felt nice.

(Except of course for, “Oh, he’s just like you were at that age, Mari”- and- “He certainly takes after you, mija.”)

Marisol is always there as well, acting as his coach, and she’s both tough and supportive. She yells, cheers, and always congratulates him with a warm hug.

Lance loves to see how proud she is whenever he wins a race.

After just a taste of the success, the confidence, and the pride that comes with competing, Lance is ready to jump into the pool full throttle, learn as much as he can, and become a pro in no time flat.

There’s just one _little_ kink in that plan.

Charlie.

Lance’s relationship with his brother has always had its ups and downs. It isn’t as distanced as his relationships with Anna Marie, or as close as with Marisol, but it doesn’t exactly fall into a ‘comfortable medium’ either.

Because Charlie is so much older than him, and technically a ‘middle child,’ he often ignores his younger brother, or brushes him off. He doesn’t like Lance in his room, doesn’t usually want Lance playing his games, doesn’t want Lance touching his drum kit or his guitar. It’s often like he wished Lance didn’t exist at all. And that… hurts.

But then, at other times, they could bond over the simplest of things. Being awake upstairs past their bedtime, midnight snacks, or blaring loud music when their parents aren’t home.

Lance just never really knows where he stands with his brother. Sometimes they’re cool, and others Charlie turns into an absolute ass around him. Every time they’re together, Lance feels like he’s be sent adrift on a safety raft, one where he has to constantly move from one end of the craft to the other just to keep it from tipping over and drowning.

So whenever the opportunity arises to spend more time with Charlie, Lance often tries to take it. Maybe if he was around Charlie more, his brother would see that he wasn’t an annoying baby, but instead a great friend!

If Marisol could see it, then surely Charlie would be able to.

It’s slow going.

So when his dad suggests that he, Lance, and Charlie all go out and practice sailing, Lance jumps at the chance.

Charlie agrees a bit more reluctantly.

So that weekend, the three of them pull down their dad’s old sailing gear and haul it down to the beach.

Their father spends an hour or so familiarizing them with the controls and the ropes. It’s not a full blown sail boat, just a simple sailing dinghy, but the basic concepts are the same (just on a smaller scale).

It’s fun, riding the waves with his brother and father. A bit like surfing, except there’s more between him and the water.

After an afternoon of riding gentle waves and laughing, they pull back to the beach.

As they’re eating lunch however, their father checks his phone, and says, “You boys can stay here. I need to run to your abuelos’ house and help with the piping real quick. I should be back within the hour.”

“Okay,” Lance says, smiling up at his father, and he’s content to simply stay on the beach, or go swimming for the hour they have to themselves.

That’s when Charlie turns to him with a conspiratory grin. “Hey, we should give the sails a whirl.”

Lance blinks up at his brother. “On our own?”

Charlie shrugs. “Sure, why not? We know how to. Besides, some friends of mine tell me that the really great sailing waters are a little south of here.”

Lance bites his lip, and glances back where their father had walked back towards their home. “But I don’t think Dad wants us going out on our own…”

“He didn’t tell us not to,” Charlie points out. “Besides, we should be back before he even notices. It’ll be fun!”

And in that moment, Lance only thinks about how he can spend time with Charlie, how this can be his chance to show his brother that he’s not just an annoying, hyperactive kid.

“Yeah,” Lance agrees, beaming up at him.

He and Charlie rig up the sails with relative ease (although they can’t seem to remember if the clip is supposed to go on the third hook or the second, and they think they may have gotten some of the cords tangled), and set off. It doesn’t take them long to round the bend, and Lance sees where his brother was directing them.

“Charlie,” Lance calls from the back, eyes widening at the sight of the rough rocks and choppy waters of the cove, “are you sure it’s safe here?”

“Positive!” his brother calls back. “Raph and Nat talk about coming down here to sail all the time! This is where the _real_ challenge is.”

Lance just braces himself on the back of the boat, holding the rope of the sail nervously.

“Alright, you ready?” Charlie asks over the sound of the waves and the wind.

“I don’t know,” Lance admits. “Those rocks look dangerous!”

“Aw, are you scared?” his brother teases, smirking back at him.

Lance feels his ears grow hot. “No!” he protests. “I’m ready if you’re ready!”

“Awesome.” Charlie turns back forwards. “Now lean back, and left!”

They swerve around the first rock with ease, the dinghy’s hull coming nowhere near the rock underneath.

“Great! Now let up a little bit, and straighten her out. I’m gona pour on the speed!” Charlie says.

It’s terrifying.

And _exhilarating_.

Lance feels breathless from laughing, and screaming, as his brother instructs him, right, then left, pull back, let up, lean your weight, don’t fall out now, isn’t this fun?

It’s thrilling.

Then Lance sees where they’re headed.

“Charlie!” he yells. “I don’t think the boat can fit through there! The bottom will get torn up!”

“Yes it can,” his brother insists. “Lean hard left!”

Lance, panicking, does as his brother asked. Except this time, his brother waits a fraction second more, before counteracting with his own turn, leading them to slice through the water, and around the rock. The side of the dinghy scrapes against the rock, briefly.

“Lean hard right!” Charlie yells.

Lance flung his weight to the other side of the boat. In retrospect, it probably hadn’t been the best idea to give the smallest of them the back of the boat. Lance, being barely sixty pounds soaking wet, didn’t have a lot of force behind him.

Still they managed to barely pass the next rock.

“Stay left, and let the sails go, pull the rope up!” Charlie instructs, and Lance panics as he sees the rock _right in front of them_.

He and his brother pull in opposite directions, turning the boat, and pushing it around the rock.

“Left, then right!” Charlie says, and Lance scrambles to follow his instructions as quickly as possible.

He’s soaked now, and the trip is anything but smooth.

They manage to swerve around the rock, the hull scraping slightly against the bottom of the boulder still under water.

“Let up!” Charlie says, and looks back to Lance, smiling brightly as Lance did so. “See! What’d I tell you?”

Lance gives his brother a wide smile, in return, only for it to slip a second later as his eyes go wide. “Charlie, look out!”

His brother turns just in time to see the large rock, extending far beneath the water, that is suddenly right in front of them.

“Shit!” Charlie yells, and tries desperately to pull the right as Lance tries to stop them.

But their momentum is too strong; the side of the dingy crashes into the rock at full force.

The boat practically splinters apart on impact, the sail splitting.

Lance is sent crashing into the water, and is slammed against the rock at full force by the split sail.

He feels something in his arm _crack!_

Lance, luckily, is not sent tumbling under the waves, and manages to keep purchase on the rock that had toppled them. The one good thing is that he is able to use the boulder as a foothold to pull his way out of the wreckage and the water, gasping for breath. He cradles his arm, gasping, shaken and in pain.

“Charlie!” he shouts, looking for his brother’s telltale auburn hair. “ _CHARLIE!_ ”

He scrambles across the rock, kicking the wreckage around, trying to find him.

Oh God, Oh God, Oh God. If Charlie fell into the water then Lance doesn’t know what he can do. He doesn’t know if he can swim in a current this strong with both arms, much less one. Not to mention, his brother is heavy.

Then Lance sees him, on the other side of the rock. Slumped over and sprawled across the boulder, but not drowning.

“Charlie!” Lance shouts in relief, stumbling towards him, trying not to slip on the algae covered stone.

His brother only groans in response.

Lance is panicking as he stoops down next to his brother, still cradling his arm, careful not the loose his balance. Why isn’t Charlie saying anything?

There’s a bit of blood at Charlie’s temple, but he’s breathing.

“Charlie, get up,” Lance says, wrapping his good arm around his brother, trying to pull him further from the water.

His brother’s eyes flick open momentarily, but they’re bleary and unfocussed.

“Lance?” Charlie slurs.

Lance nearly cries with relief.

“Yeah, yeah. You’re too heavy for me to carry, I need you to help me get you out of the water,” Lance says in a rush.

Charlie groans, and for a second, Lance despairs that he will be on his own.

But then his brother reaches out an arm and starts trying to pull himself forwards and up.

Lance keeps his arm firm around Charlie as they clamber up the rock to a higher position.

When they finally reach the top, they flop down. Lance is panting, and maybe crying a bit, as he observers their surroundings.

“Charlie,” he says, voice quiet. “Charlie, how are we supposed to get back?”

His brother doesn’t reply.

When Lance glances down, Charlie’s eyes are closed again.

Lance feels his heart sink and he goes to wrap his arms around himself, only to scream as pain laces up his left arm.

It’s agony. He’s surprised he hadn’t noticed it before just now, but his arm is practically unusable.

He curls up on the rock, in the middle of the heat, surrounded by strong currents and treacherous rocks, his brother unconscious beside him, and his left arm useless, and wonders how they’ll get back to shore.

They can’t swim.

They can’t paddle back. The dinghy is already sinking in the water, and its sail is nearly out of view.

And no one knows they’re out there.

Their dad will probably try to find them when he realizes they’re missing, but Lance has no idea when that might be. Has an hour passed already? Where would he look first when he realized they were gone?

What if they _never_ looked over here?

It isn’t like the cove is that frequently visited. And there are miles and miles of potential beach to search.

Lance can hope that Charlie wakes up and is able to swim them both back to the surface… but that’s unlikely.

So right now, whether or not they get rescued is entirely up to chance.

Lance feels tears well up in his eyes again as the realization hits him.

“Mama!” he screams into the vast ocean. “Mama, Papa! Tio Mannie! Somebody!”

Nothing.

He doesn’t stop.

Lance doesn’t know how long he screams. Doesn’t know how many times he gives up, just to start again as his desperation surges.

He knows that the sun’s getting lower.

He knows that he’s screamed himself raw.

He knows that Charlie still hasn’t woken up.

Lance is terrified.

He feels like he’s drowning, even though his head is above water.

Finally, when the sun is just beginning to touch the horizon, Lance sees a boat in the distance, rounding the bend to the cove.

He shoots up and begins wildly waving his arm, jumping up and down, heedless of the pain it causes him.

“Here, here!” he shouts, and his voice is rough and ragged, and he knows his throat will hurt tomorrow, but he needs to be heard. “We’re stuck here! Please come and get us! S.O.S.! Please!”

Lance nearly sobs when he recognizes the boat.

It’s his uncle’s. That means it has to be his Tio Manuel and his dad. It has to be.

 

It is.

It took nearly three hours, and Lance is shivering, and crying, and in pain, but he’s safe at the end of it all.

His Tio Manuel and his father pull up to them, crying in relief themselves, and help Lance and Charlie into the boat.

Lance expects a lecture of some sort, but instead his family reassures him, and gives him a blanket, and tells him everything will be okay as he explains what happened.

“I’m sorry,” he sobs to his father, face pressed against his papa’s neck. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, mijo,” his father soothes, voice choked. “It’ll be okay.”

When they get back to shore, his uncle calls an ambulance.

Lance is scared, and shaking, but his father (and his sister, and his mother, who had been waiting for them when they got to shore) stays with him, an arm curled around his side.

They say they think his arm is broken, and that Charlie most likely has a concussion.

When Lance is eventually loaded into the ambulance with his brother, they thankfully give him something that starts to numb the pain, and causes him to drift off.

 

When he wakes up next, he’s in the hospital, and his entire family is crowded into the small room. Charlie is on the bed next to him.

They explain that yes, his arm is broken, and yes, Charlie does have a concussion. But both of them will be fine.

After a while.

Which, apparently, is two to three months for Lance.

Which means no swimming. Or surfing. Or sailing, or driving, or _anything_ really.

Lance deflates at that.

His parents tell him they’re glad he’s okay, but that his actions were reckless, that he needs to be careful.

He doesn’t say ‘It was Charlie’s idea.’

He doesn’t have to as it turns out, because when Charlie does wake up, and is fully coherent, he admits as much.

His parents are a bit angrier at that.

“You’re the older brother,” they say. “You’re supposed to lead by example. Instead you endangered yourself _and_ Lance.”

Charlie just nods in defeat.

 

Two nights later, when they’re both home and supposed to be ‘resting,’ Lance can’t sleep.

So instead he sneaks downstairs, careful to tiptoe and keep his clunky cast from bumping into anything, to get a late night snack.

The light above the kitchen sink is already on.

Lance stops at the edge of the door, and peers in, wondering if maybe his parents are up later than he had thought, or if his Tia Amelia has stopped by theirs to grab some fresh fruit in the middle of the night (it wouldn’t be the first time).

Instead he sees Charlie sitting at the kitchen island with a bowl of Neapolitan ice cream.

He breathes a sigh of relief and steps out, goofy grin on his face.

“Can we share?” he asks, padding across the linoleum floor.

Charlie blinks in surprise, looking up at him.

“Oh,” his brother says, “yeah, I guess.” He looks back down, scrapping at the bottom of his bowl with his spoon. “Mama’s been guarding the ice cream like a Rottweiler since we got back from the hospital.”

Lance nods sagely, setting his elbows on the counter and grabbing the now empty bowl from Charlie, only bothering to wipe down the spoon briefly on his shirt before plunging it into the ice cream container to get his own.

“I know! ‘No sweets! You need protein and vegetables to get better, not sugar!’” Lance mimics as he pulls his now full bowl across the counter, heedless of the loud scraping sound that fills the kitchen, causing Charlie to flinch. “But like, ice cream is dairy. And so is chocolate! And I need lots and lots of dairy right now because I’m mending my bones.” Lance takes a big gulp of ice cream, then shoves his casted arm forward, waving it in front of Charlie. “See,” he says, grinning through his mouth full of strawberry and chocolate, “better already!”

Charlie doesn’t rise to the bait however, and just keeps his gaze glued to the quartz counter top.

Lance’s smile falls as he swallows his ice cream and lowers his arm.

Contrary to popular belief (and by popular belief, he means Tori), Lance isn’t _completely_ oblivious.

Charlie has been a weird kind of quiet since the accident happened, and he specifically seems to shut down whenever Lance is around. Lance would be hurt by that, except… it doesn’t look like disdain or anger, or anything like that. Instead Charlie almost seems… ashamed.

Guilty.

Lance glances away as well, brow furrowing, as he tries to pull out the right words to say. He’s not as good at it as some people, and it takes a bit more time to mull over what he _should_ be saying (and quite a bit of restraint to not just blurt out the first thing that comes to mind), but Lance likes to believe he can arrive at something _resembling_ tactful.

“You don’t need to feel guilty you know,” Lance says, keeping his voice quiet and careful. He doesn’t want to give Charlie any reason to think he’s angry. “It isn’t your fault.”

Charlie’s eyes widen at that, and he looks back up at his younger brother. Charlie meets Lance’s gaze- and he sighs as his surprise fades.

“Yeah, actually, it is, Lance,” Charlie says, dejected. “I suggested we go out, I suggested the cove, I got you hurt. This- this was my fault.”

Lance frowns at that. “You got hurt too,” he points out. “It wasn’t just me. Also, I _agreed_ to go with you. I didn’t have to. I could have told you not to go or gotten Papa.”

Charlie just shakes his head, eyes closed. “You don’t get it, hermanito. I- you’re not an older brother. You wouldn’t know better; I shouldn’t have put you in danger like that.”

Lance doesn’t know what to say to that.

Because, no, he _doesn’t_ know. He _doesn’t_ understand.

He had agreed to go out with Charlie. _He’s_ responsible for that choice. Lance doesn’t understand why or how he can be responsible for choosing something, but Charlie is somehow _more_ responsible for it.

It doesn’t make sense to him.

But Lance gets the feeling that isn’t what Charlie needs to hear right now.

So instead he says, “Well, if it means anything… _I_ don’t blame you.”

He gives his brother a tentative smile.

Charlie, despite still seeming to be weighed down by guilt (and probably the pain that comes with the concussion), watches him for a moment, before smiling back. Small and uncertain, but certainly there.

Lance cheers inwardly (and perhaps a bit outwardly), as he begins digging into his ice cream, talking animatedly as he does so. He tells Charlie how long recovery is supposed to take. He tells him his plans for his cast, how he wants everyone in his grade to sign it, how he plans to keep it when he’s better.

Charlie just watches him with that slight smile, and nods or interjects at specific points.

When Lance asks his brother to be the first to sign his cast, Charlie seems a bit taken aback, but pleased.

Lance goes to bed that night, feeling warm and safe, and closer to his brother than he can ever recall.

And as he falls asleep, Lance thinks that having his arm broken may have been worth it, just to understand his brother a bit better.

 

Lance rethinks that belief very quickly.

As it turns out, having a cast is _awful_.

It’s clunky, and sweaty, and painful, and he can’t shower easily, but what’s worse- _worse!_ \- is that he _can’t swim!_ For nearly two whole months!

Lance flops across Tori’s desk, letting his arms flail out, heedless of his friend batting his uninjured hand away.

“I’m dying, Tori,” he tells her seriously.

“How terrible,” she replies drily.

“I’m serious!” Lance cries, bring up his uninjured arm to gesture wildly. “I feel like I’m going stir crazy with this thing! I can’t swim, can’t surf, can’t go out on the water _at all_. I can’t even do much in P.E.!”

“So?” Tori asks, trying to pry her papers out from under Lance’s torso. “Most people are usually happy to get out of P.E. and stuff.”

“Nooooo,” Lance moans, turning his head towards her. “It’s awful! I feel like I have all this energy, and it’s just trapped inside me, bouncing around and around and around. It makes me feel like I need to scratch my skin off just to let some of it out!”

Tori wrinkles her nose. “Ew. Don’t do that around me.”

“ _Tori_ ,” he whines, “you’re supposed to comfort me and tell me it’s going to be okay or something!”

Tori finally looks at him and considers him carefully, lips pursed.

“Have you considered meds?” she asks.

Lance groans.

 

And it really is frustrating. Because Lance not only can’t do the things he loves, but he no longer has any viable outlet.

Lance is trying to remember everything that the doctors told him, but it’s hard, and their methods aren’t helping as much as they used to. He just feels like he has all this directionless energy, that’s just trapped inside him and building up and up and up- but he has no way of letting it out. There’s nowhere for it to go. So it stays trapped under his skin driving him _crazy_.

Concentrating feels nigh impossible, and he’s almost certain that he’s tapped all of his fingers and his foot to near numbness

He hates it.

Eventually he takes to just lying flat on the floor in front of the TV at the house, and moving his legs or arms, pretending to be on a bicycle or out in the ocean.

“Lance?” his mother asks, “What are you doing?”

“Swimming,” Lance replies sourly.

His mother’s blue eyes stay trained on him for a moment, before she shakes her head. “Well, okay then…”

Lance frowns.

He knows his mother can’t do much. She’s already told him all she can, reminding him of his concentration exercises. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t frustrating.

Lance plops back down, arms spread out as he glares up at the ceiling fan.

“Yo,” someone says, and suddenly there’s hair brushing his face, forming a veil around his head.

Lance pulls back with a squeak, but quickly becomes embarrassed as he recognizes Marisol.

“Papa said you were moping,” Mari says, not missing a beat.

Lance frowns at her, and pulls away. Marisol pushes herself back into the armchair she had been leaning over as he does so, smirking slightly with a raised brow.

“I’m not moping,” Lance grumbles.

“Right,” Mari says, shaking her head. “Look, if you were bored, you should have told me. I can definitely put you to work.”

Lance sits up immediately, excitement rushing through him like electricity. “Really?” he asks, blue eyes bright.

Then he stops for a moment, and considers his older sister carefully. “Wait,” he says cautiously, “why do I get the feeling I’m going to regret this?”

“Because you are,” Mari chirps. “Now come on, and get off your lazy bum, Lancito.”

After the next two hours, Lance is pretty sure that he’ll never be able to use his stomach muscles again.

His sister has him doing flutter kicks and superman holds and balancing practice over and over and over!

He loves it.

He certainly doesn’t tell Mari that, but- it’s something to do. Something that makes him feel good, better-right!

That itch doesn’t feel so prevalent when it’s all said and done.

 

Lance isn’t sure whether all of that makes it better or worse then, when three weeks later, Marisol moves out.

It certainly gives him something else to think about when he’s stuck at home.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise, and it isn’t really.

Mari had started college a year ago, majoring in marine biology while working to become a professional surfer. It’s a big load, but she’d been able to stay close given her intended field. She’s been commuting to college every day, but Lance imagines that has to be tiring after a while, even if it iss only half an hour out.

That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt when he gets called into his sister’s room a few days before she’s set to move out to help carry boxes.

Lance valiantly refuses to be upset over it. His sister is moving out. So what? That doesn’t mean she won’t have time for him, or that she’s _leaving_ leaving. She’ll only be fifteen minutes away.

He isn’t very successful in his attempt. He ends up crying (very manly tears, he’d argue) in his room that night.

The afternoon that Marisol is set to leave, they have the car packed up, and they’re all gathered around the driveway to see her off.

Lance hangs back a bit as his grandparents hug her tightly and the family swarms around her.

He wants to hug her, to smile and encourage her as she had so often done for him, but… it would be fake.

He doesn’t _want_ her to leave. He doesn’t know what he’ll do without her. Mari has always been such a constant in his life, that he can’t imagine his life, their home, without her there.

But he can’t say that. Not when she wants this.

Lance wants her to be happy. So he hangs back and doesn’t say much.

Of course she notices.

“Hey.”

Lance looks up as a hand is placed on his shoulder, and sees Marisol’s dark curly hair falling in her face.

“You seem a little down there,” she says, keeping her tone light.

“Me?” Lance asks, putting on his typical bravado. “Down? Never!”

His sister hums, straightening slightly. “If you say so,” she says. “But… just so you remember- I’m not going far. I’ll be a phone call away if you ever need me, okay? Not to mention, I’ll be at the house at least every weekend.”

Lance nods, but doesn’t speak, his throat constricting.

 _It’s not the same_ , he doesn’t say. _It’s not the same as having you here_.

“And don’t think you’re getting out of practice,” Mari says firmly. “Soon as that cast is off, it’s back to the beach every other day after school. Capitche?” She pauses. “‘Till then though, you’ll have to use the exercises I gave you on your own time.”

Lance’s mind seems to grind to a halt for a moment as he stares up at her. It takes a moment for the gears to start turning again, for that thought to be processed.

Marisol waits patiently.

Then it hits him- she still wants to be his coach. She’ll still hang out with him, teach him!

“Really?” he asks excitedly.

“Duh,” Mari replies, ruffling his hair. “No way am I letting you get out of practice, short stack.”

Lance feels his eyes water, but this time, the melancholy that’s been clinging to him for days now is pushed to the back of his mind.

He rushes forward, throwing his arms around his sister tightly.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you,” Lance says.

Marisol laughs as her arms wrap around him in return after a moment of surprise. “Nothing to thank me for, hermanito. It’s like I said. I may be leaving the house, but I’m not going anywhere.”

She smiles down at him, and Lance pulls back a bit to return it.

It’s not the same.

But he can live with this.

He waves her off as they drive down the street.

It doesn’t make everything better, but at least it no longer feels like there are chains wrapped around his heart, dragging it down to the bottom of the ocean.

Lance makes it a point to go to the beach that day. The water is the same as every other day, yet, in the same way, is nothing like it has ever been before or ever will be again. The ocean is so adaptable despite being such a constant.

It makes him feel better to know that something like that existed.

Because maybe, just maybe, that can be true of real life then as well.

 

Still, it doesn’t stop the weeks following Mari’s departure from feeling a bit melancholy and empty. It was like there was a Marisol shaped hole in his life, where her room is, at her place at the table, even just around the house or out on the beach.

He still gets to see her every weekend of course, and a few times during the week, but every time she leaves, Lance still wants to call for her to come back.

Mari leaving however also has an unintended consequence: Lance now has almost nothing to do after school. Sure, he has Tori, and they can sometimes go out and do things. But not _that_ often. And there’s not much they can really do anyways.

He has the exercises that Mari gave him, but without her there it’s just- it’s not the same. It doesn’t keep him preoccupied in the same way.

Besides, he can really only do flutter kicks for about an hour before it no longer keeps him preoccupied.

The week following Marisol’s move, his mother finally gets fed up with it.

“Lance,” Mama snaps that next Thursday, as Lance lays flat on the floor, face squished against the floorboards, “that’s enough moping.”

“Not moping,” he replies, his voice muffled by the floor.

“I’m not going to let you just lie about the house,” she continues, ignoring him. “If you want to get out of the house so badly, then you can help me out at the shop.”

Lance sits up almost immediately, eyes wild, “What?! No, Mama, don’t make me go the shop, _pleeeaasssee_!”

His mother’s eyes narrow. “It’ll do you some good to be around people for a while. Besides, the shop can be fun.”

“It’s boring!” Lance says, gesturing emphatically. “All you guys do are hair, and nails, and all that foofy stuff.”

“It’s settled then,” his mother says, brushing him off. “You’ll come to the shop with me starting tomorrow.”

Lance groans and flops back against the floor again, letting out a small, “Ow,” as his head thunks against the wood.

 

He’s spent time at his mother’s salon before, on days when his father hadn’t been home, and he’d had nothing else to do. Usually though he was just stuck sitting in the old hair drying chair in the corner of the room, bored out of his mind. He’d gotten out of it a lot recently, with swim practice and the like, but it seems with his arm broken, and nothing better to do, this was his fate.

And it… actually isn’t nearly as bad as he’d thought.

His mother doesn’t let him just sit and mope this time around. Instead she puts him to work, usually with a broom or some sort of wash rag, but still… it’s something to do. Not to mention the fact that many of his mother’s clients were pretty entertaining.

The older ladies getting pedicures are almost always the most fun.

They gossip, and laugh, and tell stories, and Lance wonders why he thought the salon was so bad to begin with.

The shop goers are generally pretty good company actually. Or maybe Lance really was that bored before.

Either way though, the shop turns out to be a good thing.

Lance learns a lot, not just from the customers, but from his mom as well.

“What does this do?” He often finds himself asking.

“It’s supposed to curl your hair,” or, “It cleanses your skin,” or, “It makes your hair soft,” his mom would say.

Which is usually followed by Lance gleefully asking if he could try some of it out.

At first, his mother often says no (given that products cost money, and wasting shop money isn’t a great idea… even if she technically owns said shop). But she figures out rather quickly that it’s best if she helps Lance sample a few of the items. Otherwise there’d be debacles like walking in to see Lance covered in product, and half of the display shelf pulled down.

…Lance admits it isn’t his proudest moment.

But it gets him what he wants.

So now, when he finds himself asking about the latest product his mother’s bought, she’ll often let him sample it.

“What’s it feel like?” Lance asks excitedly one time about a hair conditioner meant to be used out of the shower (which Lance doesn’t really get, but it sounds cool. So.).

“Here,” his mother says, motioning for him to sit in the currently empty chair.

Lance jumps up with glee, smiling widely back at his reflection.

His mother laughs, and pumps a small bit of clear liquid into her hands, before running her fingers through his hair briefly.

Lance lets his eyes shut for a moment, just enjoying the feeling of it. He’s always loved when his mother plays with his hair. But it’s so short that she rarely has reason to do so.

Maybe he should grow it out…

She’s done in a moment though.

“There,” she says, but grabs Lance’s hand as he reaches up to pat his head, clicking her tongue. “Uh-uh, mijo, it has to be left for a little while. If you start touching it it’ll just make your hair greasy.”

Lance makes a face at that. “ _Mamaaaa_ ,” he whines, pouting.

She just smiles. “Consider it an exercise in patience.”

Lance huffs.

But- she’s right. An hour later, when Lance runs his hands through his hair, he finds it silky and soft, and gasps in delight.

He ends up asking his mother if they can buy some. She just shakes her head at him and laughs.

(He’d like to say though, for the record, that when Christmas rolls around that year, he finds a small gift of the conditioner in his stocking.)

He finds that he also _really_ likes the stuff for facials.

It’s not actually his mom’s area of expertise. A woman, Madeline, often comes in two days a week to take clients for facials. But the stuff she uses belongs to the shop. And so it is among the things that Lance regularly asks his mother about, demanding to try.

Sometimes she directs him towards Madeline. Who just laughs, and shows him what it’s meant to be used for.

Most of the time they’re a bit silly. Things like facemasks, or cream that’s meant to be wiped off. But they can still be fun to try. Lance sometimes walks around the shop with a one of the masks on, smile set in place, and lets the old ladies in the shop laugh and coo over him.

Often times though, it’s just general lotions that he finds.

On one occasion, Lance decides to try out one that is meant to leave your skin ‘glowing and healthy’ on his unbroken arm. His mother stops him.

“Lancito, it’s meant for your face,” his mother says.

Lance frowns. “But skin’s skin. Why should it matter?”

His mother shakes her head. “What am I going to do with you?” she says, then proceeds to give him a five minute lecture on why he is very very wrong in that assertion.

Lance is just confused by the end of it.

His mother shakes her head again. “Here, like this,” she says, and takes a bit of the cream, placing it on his nose, forehead, and cheeks, then rubbing gently.

It feels weird, but kind of nice at the same time.

So Lance just stands there and lets her do it, nose scrunched up.

Afterwards however, he would like to say, for the record, that his face feels _amazing_.

There’s a lot he learns in the weeks he has left with his cast. He learns a bit about cutting hair (not enough to give a haircut, especially not with a broken arm, but he still gets the gist), and a bit about how he absolutely, cannot do a braid for his life. He learns that he’s decent at manicures, and even better at the facial stuff.

He learns a lot.

The most important being: He really likes spending time with his mom in the shop.

 

Despite that new revelation however, things still get… complicated.

It turns out that he wouldn’t have been allowed to stay home and mope long regardless, because he’d completely forgotten one very important detail.

His sister is getting married.

 

“Mari’s getting married?!” Lance cries, looking back at his father in horror.

His dad chokes. “Mari? No! Why would you even think that?”

To be fair, his papa looks equally horrified at the thought.

“But _you_ said-”

“ _Anna_ is getting married, mijo,” his mother says, shaking her head. “Did you really forget?”

And-oh. _That_ makes more sense. Anna Marie after all is older, already has a steady job, and already _has_ a boyfriend.

Now that he thinks about it, he does remember something about a wedding being mentioned last summer.

He… hadn’t really been paying attention.

He cringes. “No?” he offers.

His father shakes his head. “Aye, aye, aye, Lancito, what are we going to do with you?”

The whole wedding thing gives Lance a reason to pause. He really hasn’t given it much thought since it was first announced all those months ago (at the time it seemed too far away to bother paying much attention to it). Now… his eldest sister is getting married.

He thinks about what he knows of Anna’s boyfriend, well, her now fiancé he supposed. The answer is not much.

Anna has had her fair share of boyfriends through the years. None that Lance has been incredibly fond of. There was the Raul, the motorcyclist in college, Tyrone, the boring stock broker her graduation year, that one weird guy that Lance could never remember the name of the first year out of college, and now Nicholas.

To be fair, of the men his sister had brought home, Nicholas was probably Lance’s favorite. But it was a pretty low bar.

Apparently the man is a photographer, and had been dating his sister for two or so years now. Lance has rarely ever spent time around him, as even when he does come down to visit with Anna Marie, he is often off with the adults having adult conversations. But whenever Nicholas _does_ speak to him, it isn’t condescending or annoyed, like Anna’s past boyfriends. He actually listens when Lance talks, and jokes with him. It’s nice.

So Lance supposes if his sister has to marry someone, Nicholas is fine.

The ceremony however, is only a month away.

Lance really wants to go back and kick his past self for forgetting.

“You’ll be getting your cast off four days before,” his mother reminds him. “We’ll have to take that into account when measuring you for a tux.”

Oh yeah. And Lance will have to wear a tux.

He’s thrilled. Really.

So the next month is spent with his family, barring Charlie and Tia Amelia, who seem to be the only people in his family with any _sense_ left, going absolutely insane about the dumb wedding.

Lance would have figured most of this would be Anna Marie’s job.

(What? She has a job! A successful and stable one too. Not to mention, his sister is a force to be reckoned with. There’s no reason she can’t do it.

…Then again, Lance figures that maybe it has less to do with Anna and more to do with his family. His sister gets her nature from _somewhere_ after all.)

It’s hectic, and fun, and annoying, and _busy_.

It’s made worse by the fact that Anna specifically chose to place the date two days after Christmas, so that the family would already be down when they had the wedding.

Meaning they have to prepare for both the wedding _and_ Christmas.

And things are further complicated by the fact that Lance’s birthday is technically only two weeks before the big date.

So when Lance turns ten, it’s not a huge deal. There’s a small party with some of his closer relatives and a decent portion of the kids from his class. It’s fun, but the entire time, it’s clear that his parents, and even Mari, aren’t fully _there_. They’re frazzled, a bit distant, keep picking up the phone, and keep going inside to discuss _planning_.

Lance tells them that it isn’t a big deal, that he doesn’t care if the party is tame, or that they’re busy. And in some way, that’s the truth. But it still hurts. It hurts that even for this one day, a day _he_ considers extremely important, he can’t manage to keep his family’s attention. It causes his jealousy and resentment well up again, reminding him of all the things he doesn’t like about himself.

It sours his mood considerably. Only Tori seems to notice however.

“It’ll pass you know,” she says. “The wedding will be over, and it’ll be like it was never a big deal to begin with.”

Lance just shakes his head, sighing. “No, you don’t get it. You don’t have a big family. It’s _always_ like this.” Lance kicks at a rock glumly, muttering, “It’s always _going to be_ like this.”

He tries to have fun regardless. But those same seeds of bitterness spread their roots further, wrapping around his heart and constricting. It’s a nasty reminder.

The good news however is that he gets the cast off on time. And boy, is it a relief!

Lance whoops with joy as soon as the damned thing is cut off of him, raising his arms in celebration.

 _Finally_!

His doctor laughs. “Now just remember, you want to wait another week or so before any strenuous activity. But other than that, you should be good to go!”

“I promise, I promise,” Lance says quickly, as if complaining would cause him to wind up with the cast magically back on his arm.

It’s annoying, but he can deal. He’s waited this long to get back in the water, he can wait a week more.

Probably.

But it finally feels as if that desperate itch that’s been under his skin for the past two and half months has finally _finally_ been scratched. It’s relieving.

Of course he doesn’t have much time to enjoy it.

His parents take him out for ice cream at Coppelia’s that afternoon as a congratulatory meal (though most of the meal is spent debating with Charlie over whether or not Coppelia’s ice cream is actually any _good_ , or if it’s just a tourist scam). Lance is happy.

But it doesn’t last long. Because the very next morning, they begin getting ready for Christmas, which is only two days away.

Lance can’t remember the last time he had to clean so much. The only relief he gets is from the fact that his recently healed arm leaves him unable to do too much. Still though, his mother finds plenty to keep him occupied.

Like dusting all around the house, cleaning the silverware, helping make the beds, tidying up the rooms they almost never went in, etc. It’s all a bit chaotic.

Which should have meant he was prepared for Christmas and the wedding, but, man, was he _wrong_.

Lance is used to his large family, that is definitely true. But he isn’t used to all of them piling in at _his_ _house_. Or for his parents to be the ones running in circles trying to accommodate everyone. It would be funny if it wasn’t so stressful.

But Lance has his cast off, and his family is together, and his sister is happy and getting married… he can’t help but feel content.

The night after Christmas, two days before the wedding, Lance notices his eldest sister sitting in one of the back rooms, curled in a large chair, with a book in hand as he passes by. He almost walks right past her, but something makes him stop in the doorway.

He’s seen Anna Marie since the festivities started, but that doesn’t mean he’s really had a chance to _talk_ to her.

Sometimes, Lance can’t help but feel a bit sad when he thinks about his oldest sibling. Anna Marie has always been so much older than him, and he’s spent so little time with her. Sure, she stops by every few weeks, but usually she’s busy with school, or her job, or something else. Lance doesn’t even remember what it was like to live in the same house as her.

Despite that, he’s always really looked up to Anna. Her ambition, her ferocity, her kindness. She’s a busy body, she’s nurturing, and she’s smart as a whip, and not afraid to show it. She is so many things Lance wishes he could be.

(Just like Charlie.)

(Just like Marisol.)

He wishes he knew her better.

He can’t even say what her favorite color is, or her favorite animal, or if she _likes_ her job, or if she likes to _swim_ , or- a lot of things.

(But he knows she likes pecan pie best, and that Goofy is her favorite Disney character. And things like that bring warmth to his chest.)

So instead of walking past, he raps his knuckles softly against the door frame.

Anna Marie looks up in surprise, but a small smile spreads across her features as she notices her youngest brother.

“Oh, Lance,” she says, setting down her book, “sorry, I was just reading. Did you need something?”

Lance shakes his head, and just hops up on top of the desk across from her.

“Nope,” he says, popping the p.

She tilts her head slightly in confusion, but her smile stays. “Alright then? How have you been? I know you just got your cast off.”

Lance nods, and shoves his arm towards his sister. “Yup! Finally! Now I can wave it around however I want!” he says, flinging his arm outward to prove his point- only for his forearm to come in contact with the lamp stand, causing it to tilt dangerously.

He and Anna both watch, wide-eyed for a moment, before lurching forward.

Anna Marie’s arms are longer, and she gets to it faster, grabbing the base and steadying it quickly. As it steadies, they glance at one another, and after a tense silence- break out into laughter

“Well,” Anna Marie says through her giggling, “it certainly seems you’re right. But let’s maybe be a bit more careful, okay?”

Lance nods and gives her a two fingered salute. “Yes, ma’am!”

Anna’s smile turns fond. “I’m glad you’re feeling better though, Lance. We were all very worried when you and Charlie got hurt.”

Lance just nods dutifully, and doesn’t say the words on the tip of his tongue, that sound far too bitter and petty, even in his own head.

 _Are you sure?_ He wants to say. _Are you sure it would have mattered? Maybe the only reason anyone noticed is because **two** of us were gone, and two is a bigger more noticeable hole. Or maybe it was because of Charlie. Would they have come if it was just me?_

He knows those thoughts are unfair, so for once, he manages to keep them to himself.

(He tells himself that it’s a sign of maturity, and better focus practice.)

Anna’s smile stays, but she seems a bit confused now. That makes Lance sad as well. His sister shouldn’t be confused by him wanting to spend time with her. They’re supposed to family after all. Siblings.

“I can’t believe you’re really getting married,” Lance finally says, and well- it’s not what he meant to say necessarily, but it’d do.

“Me either,” Anna Marie says, with a small chuckle, looking out the window.

“But you’re… happy, right?” Lance ventures.

His sister turns back to him, meeting his gaze head on. “Yes,” she says, voice sincere. “Incredibly happy.”

Lance smiles back at her. “No cold feet?”

Anna Marie laughs at that, full on throws her head back and gives a loud bellow laugh.

“No,” Anna says, shaking her head. “No cold feet. At least, not today. Maybe ask again an hour before the wedding,” she adds with a wink.

Lance beams back at her.

They don’t talk about much of anything. And half the time, Anna has her nose in her book while Lance just grabs books off of the bookshelf, only to flip through them for a minute, before stacking them behind him (in different places then they had originally been, of course) again and again. But it’s nice.

Lance wishes he would have done something like this sooner.

 

The day of the wedding, Lance is forced into his tux rather unhappily, his hair is slicked back, and his nose is powdered.

“Mom,” he whines. “This is dumb. The bride’s supposed to be pretty so that no one pays attention to the rest of us. No one cares what I look like!”

“You’re the ring bearer,” his mother reminds him, straightening his tie, “everyone’s going to be looking at you first, sweetheart.”

Lance grumbles as the garment is fixed one last time.

“There,” his mama says, grabbing him gently by the shoulders and turning him around. “Now, don’t you look handsome?”

Lance blinks at himself owlishly as he faces the mirror. Because… yeah, actually, he really _really_ does.

He barely recognizes himself in the mirror, because he looks _sharp_.

He gives his reflection a smug grin. “Actually, yeah,” Lance says, looking up at his mom. “I do look pretty good, don’t I?”

His mother just laughs and gives him a swift swat on the bottom.

“Alright my little Casanova, go and join every else, alright?”

 

The wedding is beautiful, though incredibly boring in his opinion. Anna Marie however looks absolutely thrilled, and is practically glowing, so he can’t say it isn’t worth it.

But the reception is _beyond_ painful. Everyone is forced to sit while people give speech after speech after speech after…

Marisol is very near tears when she gives her speech, her purple gown sparkling as she gives a toast to their sister. Lance has to admit he’s a bit impressed. Mari isn’t usually one for public speaking, but when she does work up the nerve to do it, you’d never guess she was anything but a natural.

Finally, after what feels like hours, they cut the cake, and Lance gets to enjoy himself again. He thinks things will get boring once more when everyone starts dancing, but Lance realizes rather quickly that he can make his own fun.

The ladies of the party haven’t stopped cooing about how adorable he looks since they first saw him, and when one of the ladies, in her early thirties, stops to tells his mother how cute he is, and how he’s probably a very good dancer, an idea strikes Lance and he takes it by the horns.

A mischievous smile lights up his features as he says, “I don’t know, would you like to find out, miss?”

The lady gives a delighted giggle.

But Lance very seriously offers her his hand. With a glance back at his mother, the woman smiles at him and leans down slightly to say, “Alright sugar, I’ll follow you’re lead.”

And it’s after that that Lance realizes he can lay the charm on real thick with most of the guests at the party and manage to have some fun. He sees Charlie and Marisol shake their heads at him from across the room. He isn’t really tricking anyone per say, but he certainly isn’t nearly as smooth as he’s having fun pretending to be.

He thinks of it as practice for the real world one day.

(He knows he’ll need it. People have already told him about how likeable his siblings were (are). How Mari was always voted class president and caught the eye of most guys and interested girls in her class. About how Charlie is already so social and popular, he is almost guaranteed to be voted class favorite, or Prom King. He knows he isn’t a natural like they are. So he’ll work at it.

And one day, they’ll say that stuff about _him_.)

All in all, it’s actually a pretty enjoyable evening.

And Lance couldn’t be happier that it’s _over_ with.

 

It’s another week before he is allowed back in the water.

“Come on, come on, come on,” Lance urges, pulling Marisol along towards their accustomed spot on the beach.

Mari laughs. “Calm down, hermano, the beach isn’t going anywhere.”

“Come _ooooonnnn_ ,” Lance whines, tugging at her hand incessantly. “Do you know how long I’ve waited to get back in the water? I’m not going to let your slow butt keep me away any longer!”

“Slow, huh?” Mari asks, cocking a brow. Suddenly, the weight in Lance’s hand doubles, as his sister seems to dig her heels into the ground, leaning back.

“No!” Lance says, yanking at her arm. “Not now, Mari, please!”

Marisol looks down at her brother’s big, watery, puppy dog eyes and just sighs.

“Yeah, alright, alright.”

Lance is thrilled when they finally reach their little practice cove, and he runs straight into the ocean waves.

Only to get a mouthful of sea water and choke.

It’s good to be back.

Apparently, even with the exercises Marisol had given him, being out of the water for two plus months made him a bit rusty. Lance finds himself making stupid mistakes, or his arms tiring quickly, or his form breaking far more often than usual. It was actually kind of frustrating.

But Marisol is patient with him, reminding him to loosen up, have fun, and enjoy just being back in the water.

“But what if I’m never good enough to compete again?” Lance finally asks as they stood in the shallows, voicing the concern that had been gnawing at him for months now. “What if- what if everyone else had all this time to get better, and now I’m just- I’m never gonna catch up! And I’ll have to-”

“Wow, wow, calm down, nene,” Mari says, interrupting Lance’s rant. “Lance, I promise, you’re going to be just fine. All you need is a little while to get back on track and you’ll be good as new. Trust me, no one was out there these past two months learning something so ground breaking that you wouldn’t catch up. They just practiced.” She points to herself. “Look, when I was about twelve or so, I got super sick for like a month. I couldn’t swim for nearly six weeks. But when I got back in the water I was just fine. Same for the kid who stopped swimming for four years, only to come back when he was fourteen. Same for the girl who beat me two years ago, who had only started swimming competitively three years before that.” She shakes her head. “Besides, worst comes to worst, you lose a few races. So what?”

“I’m good at racing,” Lance mutters angrily, kicking at the loose sand beneath his feet, watching it float smoothly in the water. “I’m good at competing! I don’t want to give that up or be bad at it. Because- because then what do I have?!”

Marisol frowns. “What do you mean, ‘what do you have?’ You have a great family, you have an ocean outside your doorstep, you have a great friend, and you’ve _still_ got swimming.”

Lance just looks away, biting his lip to keep it from trembling.

This was supposed to be _fun_.

“Lance,” his sister begins gently, “competing is great and all, but that’s not all swimming is worth. And it’s not all _you’re_ worth either.”

“Mama and Papa like when I win,” Lance says, and his voice comes out watery and thin to his dismay.

“Mama and Papa like that you’re _happy_ ,” Marisol counters. “They like that you found something you excel at; something you want to throw all your passion into. They don’t really care whether or not it’s swimming.”

Lance gives a small, but tentative nod even as his eyes sting.

He can’t explain it to Mari. She was always the golden child. The class president, the likable one, the talented one, the smart one. She only had Anna Marie before her.

He _needs_ to be good at swimming. Because he in’t good at much else. And if he isn’t good at much else, then he’ll just get swept away in the hustle and bustle of things.

This past month had proved that.

But he can’t say that. Doesn’t know how to.

So instead he lets it go.

“Besides,” Marisol continues, “it’s like I said: you’ll be perfectly fine.”

 

And in the end, she’s right. Because of course she is. Lance is back to swimming his normal times within the month. And a month and a half later, he’s winning competitions again.

It’s good to be back.

 

Three months after the wedding, Lance is sitting between Charlie and his abuela at one of their weekly family dinners. This time they’re eating at his grandparents’ house. Despite technically have the smallest house of their family, his abuelos seem to have the _biggest_ dining room table. Whenever they ate at Lance’s place, his parents always had to break out the extra chairs and extendable table. But his abluelos’ dining table always seems to be a perfect natural fit. Lance just assumes that grandparents’ houses worked that way. They’re always somehow just perfect for family.

The dinners they get to have together are mostly nice. The food is good, the company, even if annoying at times, is always nice. Lance can’t help but feel warm and content as he stuffs himself on his abuelos’ homemade papas rellenas. Even with how hectic his family could be, there was never any doubt in moments like these that this was home.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that everything was perfect though.

“We’re happy you could make it in time for dinner, Amelia,” Abuela Elena says as she ladles gravy onto Lance’s plate. “Manuel said that your flight was delayed.”

Lance’s Tia Amelia doesn’t look up from where she was carefully sectioning off her dinner, eyes sharp and focused on her plate.

“Yes,” she says, “we thought the storm would get in the way of landing. But Kita and I were able to fly around with little trouble.”

“Hmm, just remember to always be careful when up there,” Lance’s abuelo says as he began cutting into the pot roast. “No matter how good you are, flying’s still dangerous.”

“Of course, Papa,” Amelia says, taking a sip of water. “But every job comes with dangers.”

“Beauty business doesn’t!” his abuelo jokes.

“Don’t be so sure, Papa,” his mother replies, a glint in her eye. “Those scissors can leave some pretty big cuts!”

“You want to talk dangerous, don’t even bother with the beauty bit,” Papa says through a mouthful of black beans. “Business! As soon as that word’s thrown in all bets are off!”

“Like you’ve really had any trouble,” Tio Mannie laughs.

“It’s hard work!” Papa protests, then points his spoon to Lance’s mother. “Tell them, Irene!”

Lance’s mom just shakes her head. “I’d be more worried about the fish if I were you, dear.”

His father huffs at that. “No one’s ever died from a couple of fish.”

“Sure they have, Papa,” Mari says smoothly. “Happens all the time.”

Their father rolls his eyes, motioning to the heavens in exasperation.

“Well, I still say that piloting’s a dangerous business,” Lance’s abuelo interjects.

“Oh Isaac, please,” Abuela Elena sighs.

Lance’s grandfather just grumbles at that, turning back to the roast.

“Speaking of not making it,” Tio Mannie says, changing the subject, “I thought Anna Marie was joining us this weekend?”

Lance’s father shakes his head. “No,” he says with a bittersweet smile, “she planned on coming down, but her doctor had to reschedule her appointment for this afternoon. She didn’t have the time.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Tia Amelia says, looking up at them for the first time since dinner began. “How is everything with the baby going?”

“Wonderful from how she tells it,” Mama says dreamily. “No complications so far, and everything’s on track.”

“Well I’d hope there wouldn’t be any complications only a month in,” Mari says wirily.

“Oh, shush, you,” Mama says. “I’m allowed to be happy about my first grand baby!”

“Oh, I’m so proud of Anna,” Lance’s abuela says. “She really did so well for herself. A good job, a good husband, and now a child on the way.”

Papa nods, slurping up the last of his potato skins. “I’m just happy she decided to go into accounting. She gets to work with numbers all she wants, and it pays like a dream.”

“Yes, but I wish it was a bit closer,” Mama replies, placing a new serving of roast on Lance’s plate.

Lance has only been paying half attention to the conversation, far too engrossed in slurping up his meal as fast as possible, racing towards a finish line promising desert.

“Marisol’s close at least,” Abuelo counters.

“Hey,” his sister protests. “I’m not a consolation prize, ya know?”

“Oh, I didn’t mean it that way, nieta,” their abuelo says. “I just mean that it’s good that at least that most of the family is nearby.”

“Besides, it’s not as if you’ve done bad for yourself, either,” Abuela Elena says. “A full scholarship to the Marine Tech Institute, that’s nothing to sneeze at.”

“Not to mention those sponsorships,” Amelia adds, a small smile on her face.

Mari shakes her head. “Nah, it’s not that big a deal. I’m just a good surfer’s all.”

“Good?” their father scoffs. “You’re out there beating the best of the best, mija. I bet if you wanted, you could sweep the Olympics off their feet!”

“Papa, there’s no Olympics competition for surfing,” Mari reminds their father.

“There is for swimming,” Papa counters. “And I bet you could swim laps around those jockey’s like no tomorrow.”

“Jockeys are for horses, dad,” Mari jokes. “Besides, I may be a strong swimmer, but that doesn’t make me Olympic material.”

“Nonsense!” their abuelo says. “You’re one of the best I’ve ever seen.”

Mari pauses at that, and takes a moment to glance over at Lance, who was currently digging in to his second helping of papa rellenas.

“I don’t know,” she says with a slight smirk. “Lance is shaping up to be a pretty good swimmer.”

Lance perks up at that, his eyes meeting his sister’s as he smiles widely at the compliment.

“Oh, yes, we know!” Abuela Elena agrees. “Lance is a wonderful swimmer, he’s already doing so well in competitions.”

Abuelo nods alongside her, and Lance looks to them, feeling something warm and proud swell inside his chest. “There’s no doubt. One day you’ll be a champion, Lancito, just like your sister!”

And just as quickly, the feeling is extinguished, leaving Lance feeling cold and a bit empty.

He notices Marisol frown, but he just looks back down at his food, his enthusiasm draining.

“That reminds me,” his mother is saying, motioning to Lance’s brother. “Charlie won MVP in football this past week!”

“Really?” Tio Mannie asks, leaning forward.

As their mother urges Charlie to launch into his story about how they had won the match, and Charlie had been crowned MVP, Lance can’t help but feel something tighten in his stomach.

He knows his family doesn’t mean anything by it. He knows they’re proud. But every time the words “just like-” come out of their mouths, Lance can’t help but want to curl in on himself.

Why is it that, even with the smallest of things, he’s competing against the impression of his family? Sometimes he wonders if surpassing any them would even matter. If he _does_ one day become a champion swimmer or surfer, would it really _matter_ if he gets farther than Marisol? Or would his achievements always be considered second best?

He knows it’s petty, but at times like these, he wonders why his family even needs him. After all, they already have everything they need in his siblings.

 

 

The thing about life, Lance comes to realize, is that it can always give you something new to focus on.

And it’s not always good.

Anna Marie is six months pregnant and Lance is almost eleven when Tio Manuel is diagnosed with stage two brain cancer.

Lance can’t quite get the look on his mother’s face out of his mind for weeks after they get the news. The shock, horror, despair. She hadn’t looked any of them in the eye the rest of the day.

Mannie had passed out a few days before. They had assumed heat or dehydration. But from the reports, it is something much more serious.

The weeks following are filled with pain, and fear, and a lot of jargon that Lance has trouble keeping up with. Things like stage two, and chemotherapy, and pills, and surgeries- it all blurs together. From what Lance can understand from all of it: Tio Mannie has cancer, which is bad. But it’s not so bad that it can’t be cured. They can cure it, but only if they cut it out (and Lance doesn’t even want to wonder what cutting into someone’s brain might be like), and then do some fancy treatment that will cost a lot of money.

And _then_ he _might_ be okay.

(But he might not.)

And Lance, admittedly, doesn’t know what to do with himself over the whole thing. Mannie is such an integral part of his family, of his everyday life, that Lance can’t imagine what it could be like without him. Doesn’t even want to think about it.

But now he has to.

Tio Mannie has been a fixture in Lance’s life for as long as he could remember. He had married his Tia Amelia when Lance was still quite young. Even if they aren’t related by blood, Lance is as close to him as he was to any of his other family, arguably more so.

And in the upcoming weeks he finds himself constantly drawn back to all the times that his uncle had made him laugh, had taken him out on trips, had squeezed his hand when he was upset or down. He thinks about how Manuel always crouched when talking to him, and never spoke down. If Lance was ever sad, he knew exactly who to go to.

And now- now his tio looks tired, even while smiling. And there is worry and tension in the air, no matter what, no matter where. In the house when it’s just Lance, Charlie, and his parents. At the dinner table with his grandparents. Certainly any time Mannie is in the room. It feels like a rubber band that was ready to snap at any time, and Lance had no idea who would be hit when it did. And that- that is _terrifying_.

He just hopes and prays that it won’t be his uncle.

A week and a half after the news comes in, Lance isn’t able to sleep.

It happens sometimes, that he will be too worked up to fall asleep, or his brain will be going too fast for him to catch up. For the past week however it seems almost to be going too slow, too sluggish. Like trying to move past a single thought is like walking through molasses. Like a broken gear that keeps getting caught on the same cog, jamming the entire machine.

Because every time Lance lies down, he can’t stop the thought ‘what happens if I lose him?’

And then-

‘What happens if we don’t?’

Because Lance knows there’s a lot he doesn’t understand, okay. But he’s not blind. He can see the strain all of this is having on his uncle. He wants his tio to come out of this okay more than anything, but the price still seems so high.

So he isn’t able to sleep. Instead he turns on his lamp, and pulls up the blinds to get a good look outside. To take in the ocean, the stars… something that might distract him, unstick his thoughts for a bit.

When he pulls up the blinds however, he notices a silhouette standing at the coastline in front of their home, standing tall and stock still with one arm wrapped around themselves.

Lance recognizes his Tia Amelia almost immediately.

Lance wonders at that moment what his aunt has to be going through at a time like this. He knows it’s difficult for him, and his parents, and his siblings, but Mannie is her _husband_. The one person who is supposed to know her better than anyone. And he might be dying.

Lance has never been particularly close with his aunt, not in the least because she is often gone for her job. But even then, his Tio Mannie has always been easier to talk to, to get along with. He just always felt like he was on uneven territory whenever he was left to speak with his aunt.

But he barely takes a second to deliberate before he’s scrambling out of bed, pulling on a light jacket, and padding downstairs, bare foot.

No one should be alone at a time like this.

Lance pulls the jacket around himself a bit tighter as he steps out of his home. Cuba is never particularly cold, but the sea breeze at night could get a bit nippy.

But he doesn’t mind. Despite living on a Tropical island, Lance has never minded the cold. He even kind of likes it.

The sand is cool between his toes as he makes his way to where his aunt is standing.

She is technically only a few yards from her own front door. Her red hair is loose, whipping slightly in the wind, and she doesn’t turn to look at Lance as he walks up behind her.

But when Lance comes to a stop next to her, only a few feet from the surf, she doesn’t startle.

They stand there in silence for a moment, both of them just staring out at the ocean, where the dark waters meet the dark sky, each vast and beautiful in their own way.

“Looking at the stars?” Lance finally asks when he can’t take the silence any longer.

(Hey, he’s never claimed to be particularly patient.)

“Yes,” his aunt answers simply.

“Do they seem closer up there?” he asks. “When you’re flying?”

Amelia inclines her head slightly. “Sometimes,” she says softly. “Other times they seem farther away.”

Lance’s brow furrows at that. “That doesn’t make sense,” he replies bluntly.

Her lip twitches. “No, I suppose it doesn’t.”

Lance doesn’t really know what to say to that. So instead, he changes the subject slightly, and says, “I look out at the stars a lot. Especially when I can’t sleep.”

His aunt just hums in acknowledgement.

Lance presses forward, undeterred. “My parents got me a telescope when I was younger. Sometimes I’ll break it out and look at all the different constellations. I don’t think I’m very good at it, but-” he broke off with a shrug.

His aunt gives a soft sigh. “The stars have always been fascinating,” she says. “Calming. So constant, but always changing.”

“Like the ocean?” Lance interjects.

“Like the ocean,” she agrees with a small smile. “I’ve always loved them, since I was little girl. I wanted to be an astronaut.”

“Really?” Lance asks, eyes wide with amazement.

“Yes,” she says. “I would spend my nights staring up at the sky, dreaming of what it might be like to be up there among them.”

Lance looks up at his aunt with wonder and revelation. Tia Amelia had wanted to be an astronaut, that was so-so- and his expression falls.

“Why didn’t you then?” And his voice, usually so loud and obtrusive, seems to be carried away by the wind.

“I suppose I settled,” Tia Amelia replies, and her smile is bittersweet. “Mama and Papa never liked the idea. And I would have been so far away. I wouldn’t have been able to stay here or come home often. I’d be away for months on end, only to get called away for another mission. It would have been a lonely life.”

“Yeah,” Lance acknowledges, brow furrowing, “but you would have been living your dream?”

“Yes,” she admits. “But sometimes you make sacrifices. I had been accepted to the Garrison, was ready to make that decision. I wanted to see the stars so badly. I realized though that I didn’t _want_ to leave my family. So I compromised and joined the piloting program instead.”

Lance pauses at that, and they both fall into silence again, listening to the waves crash against the sand, as they stare up at the star covered sky.

It really is beautiful, and not for the first time, Lance feels something in him ache. He would feel it sometimes, when he looked into the sky. At first he didn’t know how to describe it besides curiosity. It wasn’t until he had his cast on and was separated from the ocean for so long, that he recognized what it is.

“Do you ever regret it?” Lance asks. “Do you- do you ever wish you’d chosen differently.”

His aunt is quiet for a moment, before murmuring, “Sometimes.”

“What about right now?” Lance presses, and he knows the question may be intrusive, but at the moment, it feels like it needs to be voiced.

The pause is longer this time. And when Lance glances up at his tia, she looks genuinely pensive, as if she’s turning the thought over in her head, trying to think of what answer she wants to give.

Finally, she admits, “I don’t know.”

And the answer is so blunt and lost and painfully sincere, that Lance doesn’t know what to do with it. How is he supposed to reply?

Because on the one hand, he thinks he gets it: If you were somewhere else, you wouldn’t have to deal with it. Deal with the pain, the uncertainty. You wouldn’t have to look it in the face every morning.

On the other, he knows that’s an awful way of thinking, because you’re _supposed_ to stay and _feel_ , and support your loved ones, even in a time of need.

But that doesn’t make it easy.

And sometimes, the idea of running away into the far stars must sound so much simpler.

So instead, Lance says, “I wanted to be an astronaut when I was little too.”

That same smile twitches at his aunt’s lips. “When you _were_ little?” she asks, almost teasing.

Lance puffs out his chest. “I will have you know that I am very mature now,” he says in a matter of fact tone.

His aunt chuckles slightly at that. “Of course.”

Lance smiles a bit at that, but he let some of his air out, and looks back towards the ocean. “But yeah. I mean, I wanted to be a lot of things technically. But for a while there, I _really_ wanted to be an astronaut. I had my parents put those glow in the dark stars up on my ceiling, and I _begged_ for that telescope.”

“And now?” Tia Amelia asks softly, turning the question back on him.

Lance’s brow scrunches slightly at the question. “Now? I don’t know; I haven’t really given it much thought in a long time. I mean, I still really love space, and stars, and learning about all of that. But I guess it just… fell away? I’m good at swimming, and I’m not really all _that_ smart so…” he shrugs.

His tia turns to him, frowning again. “Who told you that?”

Lance looks up at her in surprise. “Who told me what?”

“That you’re not smart,” his aunt clarifies.

“Oh,” Lance frowns, looking down at the sand scratching between his toes. “I dunno. No one, I guess? But they don’t really need to. It just kind of… is, ya know? I mean, I’m just not smart like Marisol, or Anna, or, well, you. Stuff just comes so natural to you guys, and for me it just- doesn’t. I talk a lot, and I can’t focus well or sit still, and reading is hard. I just… I couldn’t make it in a program like that.”

Lance is surprised when he feels his tia’s hand on his shoulder, turning him gently to face her.

Her eyes are piercing when they meet his.

And that, in and of itself, is a bit alarming.

His Tia Amelia has always been a bit… distant. She doesn’t usually prefer to talk in social settings, or to touch. And she so rarely ever _looks_ at people, like really _looks_. Her eyes might pass over someone, or flick to the wall behind them, but she never holds a gaze.

Lance remembers when he was younger he once cried to his mother because he believed that his aunt’s impassive and seemingly cold gaze meant that he had done something wrong, meant that she did not like him.

His mother had reassured him gently that it wasn’t the case at all, that Amelia had simply always been like that. She had always had a bit of difficulty interacting with others, and often seemed antisocial.

“It doesn’t mean anything about you, mijo, I promise,” his mother had said. “That’s just how your tia is.”

So for Tia Amelia to be looking back at him, holding his gaze and his shoulder, Lance understands that this moment meant a lot to her, that she considers it important enough to go so far outside of her own comfort zone.

Lance knows to listen carefully.

“Lance,” his aunt says, “don’t you ever think that about yourself. You’re _not_ me or your sisters. You’re your own person, and you’re smart, capable, and determined. You’re _more_ than smart enough to do anything you set your mind to. If that’s swimming then that’s more than fine. But if it’s being an astronaut, then don’t you _dare_ let something like self-doubt stand in your way.”

Lance stares up at his tia with wide eyes. He hadn’t- it isn’t as if he’s ever really given it much thought. It’s just-

It feels like such a fresh breath, like he’s breaking his head above water after years of drifting below the surface, to hear those words.

It means a lot. Not just the words, but the effort that his Tia Amelia clearly went through to tell him all of that, to be as sincere and as direct as she was.

It makes Lance’s eyes sting, and his nose tickle.

Lance nods, a knot in his throat, and then pulls away slightly, just enough to wipe at his eyes for a moment.

Wasn’t he supposed to be making _her_ feel better?

Instead of voicing that thought, he says, “Yes ma’am.”

“Good,” Tia Amelia says, lifting her hand from his shoulder, and turning away again, her disposition shifting back to stern so naturally.

She waits patiently as Lance sniffles a bit, and tries to get his own emotions under control. He isn’t very good at it.

Eventually though, when Lance thinks he can talk without getting too choked up he says, “Will you tell me about the stars?”

Amelia takes a deep breath. “What would you like to know about them?”

Lance looks up at the vast, vast sky, and the beautiful galaxies that opened up in front of him, feeling that instinctive tug in his gut.

“Everything,” he says.

 

It doesn’t solve anything really. It doesn’t magically make Tio Mannie well, and it doesn’t mean that they both suddenly understand the universe.

Instead though, Lance gains a new appreciation for his aunt and for the stars. They stay out there that night, talking for hours, as his tia describes the constellations, and the galaxies, and theories that Lance can’t quite keep up with but is fascinated by anyway.

And at the end of it, there’s this tension, almost as if they’d been holding their breaths, that’s released. A relief, an outlet. Lance feels less heavy, and even though he’s exhausted the next morning, he feels more ready to face the day.

He hopes it helps his aunt as well. She certainly never seems to deter him.

It doesn’t happen every night. Hell, it doesn’t even happen every night that Lance finds himself lying awake at night watching the stars. And he’s certain that it doesn’t happen every night that his aunt wanders outside her house and stands on the beach for hours at a time.

But when the two just so happen to occur simultaneously, they keep each other company. And Lance learns about the stars, and his aunt, and they don’t talk about the surgeries, or the cancer, or the fear. Instead they both take a moment to revel in the support and comfort of family, without the oppressive and depressing atmosphere hanging over their heads.

It’s… nice.

 

The thing about life, is that even when tragedy strikes, the world keeps moving. So Mannie is preparing for his first bout of radiation therapy when Anna Marie’s baby is born. His name is Carson, and Lance loves him on account of him being his nephew, but Lance really can’t understand why everyone else keeps cooing over the baby. Newborn babies are honestly kind of ugly and gross.

His family just laughs at him for that. He tells it to Tio Mannie later, who gives a soft chuckle. It’s something.

His uncle is recovering from radiation when Lance turns eleven.

The party is subdued, and his parents seem strained. Not from the overload of people or from being too busy. They just tend to be a bit more…tired lately, with everything that’s going on.

It’s a nice party, and Lance has fun, but he notices his family’s distraction.

This time however, it doesn’t bother him.

He notices himself getting distracted as well.

 

Lance would like to say that he spends the entire ordeal standing at his tio and tia’s side proudly, comforting them, making them laugh, and spending every moment he can with his uncle.

In reality, Lance is scared.

He wants to do that. Wants to stay by Tio Mannie’s side, and give every bit of support that the man had given him over the years. But he’s afraid. He doesn’t know what to say. What to do.

Would it come across a pity? Would it seem cheap? If he suddenly starts hanging around his uncle more often than usual, it might seem like Lance really _does_ think Mannie is slated for death.

The last thing Lance wants is to be his uncle’s personal bad omen.

Not to mention, even when he is with his uncle, Lance often finds his words getting stuck. He feels like he should be offering words of condolences, that he should be addressing the elephant in the room. But he doesn’t know how. He doesn’t know how to talk to someone, someone he loves a lot, who might be dying.

He wants to tell jokes, but it feels wrong. He wants to give too many hugs, but it feels wrong.

 _Everything_ feels wrong.

So he just tries to act normal. And if he hugs his Tio Mannie a bit more than usual that’s fine.

He still feels guilty though.

So when one day, a month or so into Tio Mannie’s treatment, his uncle mentions his garden, Lance sees a perfect opportunity.

“How’s that coming, anyways?” Lance asks, trying to keep his tone light as he sits at his tio and tia’s breakfast counter. “Are the flowers blooming?”

His uncle sighs. “No, not yet. It’s supposed to be the season for them soon, but… I can’t really go out there and replant right now.” He looks pained. “Doctor says I need to be careful about getting overworked or overheated.”

“Does it help to go out at night?” Lance asks, tilting his head.

His uncle laughs softly at that. “I think the principle of no physical labor is pretty straight forward, regardless of what time of day it is.”

“Oh,” Lance says, expression dropping. Then he brightens. “I could do it!” he says.

His uncle stops in putting the eggs away, looking at him in confusion. “Do what?”

“I could replant your garden for you!” Lance says excitedly, leaning forward on the counter, knees propped under him on the stool. “You would just have to tell me how, and I could do it!”

His uncle looks surprised. “Oh. I- thank you, Lance. But I don’t know. It would be a lot of work for you to replant the entire garden yourself…”

“Charlie could help me!” Lance crows, hitting his brother’s shoulder with the back of his hand. “Right, Charlie?”

His brother pauses, looking up at Lance blearily from his omelet, eyes squinted. “Wha?”

“See!” Lance says, turning back to his Tio Mannie. “We could totally do it!”

His tio closes the refrigerator door, and considers him and his brother carefully for a moment. Lance is practically bouncing up and down on the stool from excitement.

 _Finally_ he can try to help his uncle with something. The garden means a lot to his Tio Mannie, he knows that. It would just be depressing if his uncle had to watch his flowers wilt away while he’s recovering.

“Okay,” his uncle says finally.

Lance lets out a whoop of victory.

“Inside voice, mijo!” his mother calls from the other room.

Lance sits back down properly, still smiling widely.

“I can show you two how it’s supposed to be done, and then I’ll let you take it from there. How’s that sound?” his tio asks.

“Perfect,” Lance says, hitting his brother again excitedly, as his tio slides him his freshly made omelet.

“It’s way too early for this,” his brother grumbles, going back to his eggs.

Lance just laughs in delight.

 

Gardening, as it turns out, is a lot more work than Lance gave it credit for.

He’d always seen his tio’s gardens, always admired the gorgeous variety of flowers, vines, and small bushes. It’s like its own little ecosystem. Lance vividly remembers having to be told multiple times when he was younger not to go trampling the flowers by running through them. He had once crawled under one of the bushes and just stayed there when he was around six or seven, and had been content to stay there, picking at the dirt, and staring up at the bed of flowers from beneath.

His uncle had doubled over laughing when they found him.

Lance would do _anything_ to see him laugh like that now.

But as it turns out, his tio’s carefully constructed oasis isn’t easy to maintain.

So he and Charlie spend hours pulling out weeds, pulling out dead flowers, replanting, checking roots, and burying new seeds.

“Good job, boys!” Tio Mannie says as he brings them out two Jupinas. “When you finish up with the seeds in this section, you can just give them some water and call it a day.”

Both Charlie and he let out a breath of relief at that.

“Just know to come back tomorrow to do the other two sections,” his uncle says with a smirk.

He and Charlie groan.

 

It becomes a good way of spending time with both his tio and his brother as it turns out. They come by every couple of days to do some of the more tedious work.

It’s tiresome, but Lance almost kinds of enjoys it.

Besides, his uncle cares about the garden a lot, and Lance doesn’t want it to become just another depressing reminder of his tio’s illness.

Tio Mannie has done so much for him over the years, Lance is happy to give back.

 

One day, when it’s just Lance out in the flowers, pulling at weeds, and watering, and planting (Charlie’s off doing who knows what), his tio comes out and sits in the low patio chair.

“Lance,” Tio Mannie says, smiling slightly, “you don’t need to worry about that today. It’s not too hot out, I should be able to do some upkeep myself. You go have fun.”

Lance stops, and tilts his head slightly.

“I want to do this though,” Lance says sincerely. “It’s fun.”

Mannie laughs. “Come on now, a boy your age isn’t interested in a bunch of plants.”

Lance huffs at that, placing his hands at his hips, headless of the soil he’s spreading over his shirt. “Why’s that? I happen to think it’s really interesting! I finally get to see your secrets.”

Tio Mannie shakes his head. “You’re a strange one, Lance, I’ll give you that.” He pauses. “You sure you don’t want the day off?”

“Nah,” Lance says, smiling, as he wipes his brow and begins digging again.

“Mind if I stay out here with you, then?” his uncle asks.

Lance brightens at that. “Yeah! It’d be good to know if I’m actually doing stuff right for a change.”

“I’m sure you’ve been doing great,” Tio Mannie says.

They send the rest of that afternoon talking, and his tio tells him about the different types of flowers, and planting, and Lance even learns a bit about Varadero from it all. Turns out climate is pretty important for gardening. Who knew?

It becomes a ritual that Lance is proud to have.

 

It’s not perfect. It doesn’t magically cure his uncle. But Lance sees Mannie smile more, and he seems to glow brighter when he sees the flowers. And Lance can’t help but feel his own spirit lift every time he sees it.

 

The world keeps turning, and life keeps happening, and Tio Mannie seems to be getting better. ‘Responding positively, to treatment’ is how they put it.

Lance is eleven, and around the beginning of ‘spring’ semester (not that it’s really noticeable in a place as warm as Varadero), he starts to notice that he’s… _noticing_ things more. Like girls.

And really, there isn’t much odd with that, considering the fact that Lance has always liked girls, or at the very least, liked the idea of them.

But then, within the first few months of the awful experience known as ‘puberty’ Lance realizes that as much as he’s _noticing_ girls, he’s not really noticing _girls_.

At least… not the way most people seem to. When classmates or people on television talk about girls they always seem to talk about asses, and breasts, and skin. And that just seems… _odd_ to Lance. Sure, those things are nice and all, but they don’t make him want to kiss someone. Not when there are things as interesting and captivating as someone’s eyes, or the slope of their nose’s, or silky soft hair, or the look that lights up their faces when they smile…

But Lance just figures it’s one of those _things_ , and leaves it be. He doesn’t think much of it.

Until-

“Okay, what about floral shirt over there?” Tori asks, and Lance can’t resist groaning.

“Ai, Dios, why,” he whines. “Did he dress himself in the dark? Did he lose a bet?”

“My guess was that his blind grandmother dressed him,” Tori says.

Lance tilts his head a bit, considering floral print guy at a different angle. “You know, now that you mention it, it _does_ remind me of those little old white lady couches you always see, with all the tacky flower patterns on them.”

Tori chokes on her milkshake, practically cackling. “Oh my God.”

“Well it does!” Lance says, laughing as well.

“Isn’t your Abuela Elena technically a little old white lady?” Tori asks, still snickering.

Lance makes an affronted noise. “Excuse you, no she is _not_. My abuela is a proud Cuban woman, through and through!”

“Sure, sure,” Tori nods, “but I mean-she’s still white.”

“An assault!” Lance cries dramatically, putting his hand to his chest and leaning back. “An assault on my household! This cannot stand!”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m still too preoccupied with this assault on my _eyes_ ,” Tori snorts.

Lance looks back over to the man in the floral shirt. It really is an eyesore, red and covered in Hawaiian flowers. _Hawaiian_.

They aren’t even in _Hawaii_!

Lance sighs. “Someone really needs to help that poor guy.”

“Yeah, but it ain’t gonna be us,” Tori says, leaning back against the bar, sipping at her milkshake.

It was almost ritualistic for them. Tori and Lance have been going to the pizza shack on the boardwalk for well over a year now. It started back when Lance originally broke his arm, and couldn’t go swimming or do anything extraneous. Tori has never been one for the ocean anyhow. She likes to swim just fine, but it’s never really been _her_ thing. So when Lance had broken his arm, and they had to settle on doing things that were far more tame, they started to spend their afternoons hanging out around the boardwalk, specifically, Damion’s Pizza Shack.

They don’t do much, just munched on pizza and garlic knots while talking about school or judging passerbys. They sometimes make a contest of who could find The Worst Dressed TouristTM; it’s pretty hilarious.

Even after Lance had gotten his cast off, they kept the tradition. They like the food, and it’s pretty fun despite being ‘low key.’

“Okay, but what about the socks and sandals dude?” Lance says, pointing with his straw, flinging bits of chocolate milkshake onto his friend and the counter (to the disgruntled disgust of Damion himself). “I mean come on, he’s even wearing a pastel shirt with bright yellow shorts. That’s pretty awful.”

“Ugh,” Tori says winkling her nose, “talk about frat boy gone wrong.”

“Is he colorblind?” Lance wonders aloud.

“No,” Tori says, snorting. “Just very white, and probably very stuck up.”

“Okay, but I feel like that could describe like half the tourists here?” Lance reminds her, frowning. “If we go by that standard, the field’s too broad. We need a _real_ criteria.”

It’s a common argument.

And one of Lance’s favorites.

“Kay,” Tori says with a shrug, “here’s a criteria for you: Whoever I pick wins. There.”

“Hey!” Lance protests. “That’s not an objective standard!”

“How’s this for an objective standard?” Tori asks, flicking beads of her own milkshake towards Lance.

Lance pulls back from the sudden assault of small drops of cold vanilla, staring back at his friend with wide eyes.

“Oh,” he says, eyes narrowing, “it’s _on_.”

Lance rushes forward, his half full straw hanging out of his mouth, and now out of his drink, lunching for Tori.

Tori screeches, and dives off of the bar stool, out of Lance’s immediate range. The straw drops out of Lance’s mouth, but he isn’t deterred, simply grabbing his half-finished milkshake from the counter again.

“Come and face your demise!” Lance shouts, dipping his fingers in his drink, and flicking chocolate at her.

Tori just yelps, ducking behind the stool slightly to grab her own drink, mimicking Lance’s action.

“Milk isn’t threatening, you jerk!” Tori yells, flicking her own milkshake at him deliberately, forcing Lance to duck as well.

They go back and forth, flicking milkshake at one another, and hiding behind their makeshift forts.

“It is if you’re lactose intolerant!” Lance retorts.

“We’re both drinking _milkshakes_ , idiot!”

Lance is about to respond when he hears a slight chuckle behind him.

Lance stops mid flick, and turns to look up, and up, to see the newest life guard standing behind him.

He had heard that there was a new person taking over for Jeremy’s old shift, but he had only seen the guy from afar, since Lance prefers to swim away from most tourist spots.

The guy is lean, tanned, and his dark hair is pulled up into a bun at the top of his head. He wears a shark’s tooth around his neck, drawing attention to his bare chest, and is smiling down at them brightly, lighting up amber eyes.

And Lance suddenly feels like he’s been hit in the gut because-

Oh.

 _OH_.

The man is beautiful, and Lance has a sudden and overwhelming desire to kiss him.

Lance is caught, staring at the man, when Tori’s attack hit’s him square in the face, leaving his cheek streaked with vanilla ice cream.

Lance reels back in surprise, blinking slowly.

The lifeguard laughs again. “Milkshake wars?”

“Nah,” Tori replies standing up again. “This moron will just make a competition out of anything.”

He nods knowingly. “There’s always one,” he jokes, then looks down at Lance and gives him a wink.

Lance thinks he might pass out.

Tori glances at him, almost as if she’s waiting for him to speak up, and her brow scrunches when he remains silent.

Thankfully, she refuses to let the silence become awkward.

“You’re the new lifeguard, right?” Tori asks, not avoiding the obvious. “The one taking over for Jeremy?”

“Yeah,” he nods. “I’m Adan. I’m actually from up north a bit. Del Mar area.”

“Cool,” Tori says. “I’m Tori. This idiot here is Lance.”

Adan smiles. “Nice to meet you.”

Lance can’t stop staring. He knows he’s staring, and he knows he’s being obvious, but he can’t help it.

Because a) he wants to kiss a _guy_ , and b) the guy he wants to kiss IS RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM!!!

“Do you guys usually eat here?” Adan asks.

“Yeah,” Tori says, “no one makes better pizza in Varadero.”

Adan nods. “Good to know. Can I expect to see you guys out on the water?”

Tori shrugs. “Probably. Though, I’m not much of a swimmer myself. That’s more Lance’s area; he _loves_ swimming,” she says with a roll of her eyes. “He’s practically a dolphin with how much he’s in the water.”

And Lance just continues to stare as both of them turn to him expectantly.

After a moment of awkward silence, Tori elbows Lance in the ribs, _hard_ , causing him to jump with a yelp.

Lance glances to her, only to see her watching him with raised brows, indicating towards the life guard.

Lance’s brain catches up.

“Oh, oh yeah!” Lance says, far too enthusiastically, turning back to the guard. “Yeah, I’m a real natural in the water. Like a dolphin. Haha,” his laugh came out sounding hysterical and forced. “Just call me dolphin boy, ey, ey, ey,” he says, making a dolphin call. “No need to- uh- worry about… me?”

Lance doesn’t have to look at Tori to know that she’s face palming.

He’s too embarrassed himself to share in her second hand experience.

The lifeguard, Adan, though, doesn’t seem to care much. He just gives an amused smile and raises a brow.

“That so?” Adan asks. “Well, I’ll keep that in mind. Maybe you can help me keep everyone safe out there, yeah?”

“Psh, sure,” Lance says, practically tripping over his words, even as he tries to lean back against the counter of the shack. “I mean, it’s whatever. I can help.”

“Good,” Adan says, and then turns to Damion to give his order.

Lance doesn’t say anything, just slides stiffly back into his stool, wraps his hands around his no longer cold milkshake, and just stares down at it, cheeks flushed.

Oh God, he could not have made more of a fool of himself.

He can feel Tori’s eyes on him, and notices when she sits back down out of his periphery vision. He knows she’s laughing at him internally, and struggling to keep that laughter there. But he can’t look at her.

She at the very least has the decency to wait until the lifeguard has ordered his food and moved out of ear shot before she bursts out laughing.

“Oh my God, what was _that_?!”

“What was _what_?” Lance demands, firmly in denial even as his cheeks heat up.

“You made _dolphin_ noises,” Tori says, and then mimics Lance, clapping her hands together like a seal.

“S-So?” Lance splutters.

“So?” Tori raises a hand and waves it in the direction Adan had walked off. “What the hell? Why were you so _weird_ about it?”

“I wasn’t,” Lance mutters. “I just- you caught me off guard I was- I was just-”

“Trying to be funny?”

“No!” Lance cries. “Well, not-kind of, but I wasn’t-”

Tori just shakes her head. “Dude, you aren’t even this bad when flir-”

She cuts herself off, eyes widening, and Lance panics a bit.

Damn her, and her extremely perceptive ways!

Tori knows him far too well at this point.

“Oh my God,” Tori says.

“No!” Lance says quickly. “It wasn’t-no! He’s just- you know- and I’m- it’s not- No!”

“You were totally trying to flirt with him!” Tori yells, and Lance slaps a hand over her mouth, glancing around furtively to see if anyone had heard.

Luckily no one was paying them much attention.

Tori licks his hand before forcing it away. But when she next speaks her voice is lower.

“Except you were all nervous, and trying to impress him, oh my God,” she repeats. “I can’t believe this!”

Lance just groans and slumps down in his seat.

He is already reeling from the sudden realization; he doesn’t really feel like explaining it.

“It wasn’t flirting,” Lance tries again weakly.

“No, it certainly wasn’t,” Tori says with a snort. “But it was an _attempt_ at flirting, and that’s what matters. What the hell Lance?”

Lance shrinks in on himself a bit further. “I don’t know,” he says. “I just- he was nice looking- I mean, objectively.”

Tori is watching him with critical eyes. “You know,” she says, tone thoughtful, “I always wondered whether you actually just liked girls that much, or if you were maybe compensating for something.”

Lance sits up straight at that, squawking in indignation. “Hey! I will have you know that I do actually like girls that much! I’m not faking that! This was just…” he trails off, searching for the right word, “an exceptional circumstance.”

Tori’s brows rise at that. “An exceptional circumstance?”

Lance throws his hands up in defeat. “I don’t know, okay! I’ve never thought about a guy like- like _that_ before!”

A contemplating frown tugs at Tori’s lips as she looks back towards where Adan was currently finishing his lunch break.

“So this is new or something?”

“Yes,” Lance replies, exasperated. “Like, two minutes new.”

“Why this guy though?” Tori presses.

Lance looks affronted at that. “ _Why him?_ Did you _see_ him? He’s beautiful!”

Tori just brushes off his outrage, smirking again. “Beautiful, huh?”

Lance just let’s his hand bang against the counter top.

Tori is silent for a beat. “So, what, you like girls, but you also liked this lifeguard guy?”

“Yes,” Lance mutters, far too tired for this.

“Do you think it’s just the lifeguard guy or guys in general, or…?”

“I don’t know,” Lance says into the counter, face pressed against the warm wooden slab.

“Huh,” Tori says, and goes quiet again.

Lance waits for her to say something else, but when she doesn’t he admittedly can’t help but feel nervous.

Lance picks his head up carefully, his cheek sticking to the counter slightly. Tori is staring off into the distance, brow furrowed slightly.

“That isn’t going to be… a problem or anything, is it?” Lance asks. And he means for his voice to come out hard and challenging. But instead it’s thin, and high, and sounds afraid.

Tori is his only _real_ friend. He can’t bear to lose her.

“What?” Tori says, seemingly snapping out of her thoughts. “No? No! Of course not, what kind of question even is that, Lance?”

Lance sighs, and smiles in relief. “Just making sure.”

In the end, Lance decides he’ll think about it some more. On his own. In his own time.

Tori agrees to mostly leave it be, but promises to keep it a secret.

Lance doesn’t know what it’ll mean for their friendship or himself in the future, but… it’s not quite as scary as he thought it would be.

 

It doesn’t go away.

The noticing guys thing.

It admittedly doesn’t seem to happen as often as it does with girls, but when it does- oh boy.

Apparently, a lot of those same things he likes so much about girls- yeah, guys can have those things too.

But it’s a process, and it’s gradual, and Lance does his best to not freak out.

He’s not entirely sure he succeeds, but an honest attempt is made.

He considers what to do with his newfound revelation. He knows how to talk to girls, knows what he’s supposed to say, knows how he’s supposed to approach them (even if he doesn’t always succeed), but guys are just… a mystery.

Which is weird!

Isn’t’ it?

Because he _is_ a guy. But every time he tries to ask himself how he would want to be approached by another dude, he draws a blank.

So for the time being he lets it be. If he feels like the moment is right, or he has the right thing to say, he may give it a shot, but it’s just easier to let sleeping dogs lie… and just talk to Tori about all the attractive girls _and_ guys he _isn’t_ getting the phone numbers of.

(Not to mention, Lance has no clue how his family might react. He doubts that they’d have a problem with it. Even the more conservative side of his family had accepted his cousin when he’d come out of the closet. There had been a few months of awkwardness and stepping around the issue, but eventually things had just smoothed back to normal. But that knowledge doesn’t make telling them _easy_.)

(Lance thinks that if he were to tell anyone else about this, it would be Marisol.)

 

Luckily however, there is one thing to keep his mind off of his confusing hormones.

Surfing.

He’s managed to continue doing well in swimming competitions, getting faster and faster with each month. It gave him a rare sense of pride.

For all that teachers often look fed up with him, or his classmates roll their eyes at his antics, it’s good to know that there’s _something_ he’s undeniably good at.

It makes him want to jump up and down, and shout, “Hey look! The fidgety nutcase can do something right!”

Which of course wouldn’t have helped his case.

So he doesn’t.

(See? He’s getting better at suppressing his impulses.)

Instead he struggles to pay attention, and to keep his hands ‘quiet’ and to remember what the instructions had been and-

Tori helps a bit with some of that. But the rest of it is on him.

But he’d like to say, for the record, that he gets _damn_ good grades, regardless of how difficult it is. And he’s proud of that.

And practice seems to keep his constantly buzzing energy in check. Towards the end of the school day he often finds his skin itching a bit as he desperately wishes for an outlet, but he can handle it for an hour or so before tearing off towards the beach.

Recently though, swimming hasn’t been his only competitive training.

His sister has been teaching him to surf for years, but kids are officially allowed to enter proper competitions at twelve. And Lance had practically _begged_ his parents to sign him up.

So, the next year is spent dual training.

And so far, surfing is Lance’s undeniable favorite.

Swimming is always going to be amazing, but there is something so powerful and graceful in riding a wave, that he just can’t put a name to it.

The best way he can think to describe it, is that he feels how he imagines the heroes of old epics felt when they’d command the oceans. Like a part of some long forgotten magic has been imparted on him to allow him the opportunity to ride the waves.

Lance would like to say, for the record, that he’s pretty proud of coming up with something that poetic.

The point is: it’s amazing.

The only downside? Marisol is _relentless_. As soon as the words ‘surfing competitions’ come out of Lance’s mouth, she is already off like a rocket, imagining all the ways to make his body miserable in exchange for winning a trophy.

Lance pretends to hate it.

If he secretly likes the stiffness in his muscles, the feeling of a harsh wave crashing into him, the feeling of getting a maneuver right, finally, finally after having tried for so long. Then that’s his business.

That doesn’t mean it never gets frustrating though.

Lance splutters as he pulls himself back up on his board, still a bit disoriented from the tug of the line keeping him tethered to his board swinging him back and forth along the waves.

“Ugh,” Lance groans, setting his head against the board, and giving his sister halfhearted glare. “Okay, this seriously isn’t worth it. No one expects a kid to pull off a barrel maneuver.”

“I do,” Marisol replies, bluntly. “I don’t care what other people expect of you. I care about what you should expect of yourself. And given what you’ve accomplished, I _expect_ you to learn this technique. Come on, I’m not even asking you to get through the full barrel.”

“It’s still ridiculous!” Lance complains, throwing a hand up. “I’ve been at it for hours now, I’m not gonna get it!”

“Try again,” Mari says simply.

“No,” Lance retorts, hitting his hands against the board, finally giving in to his own stubbornness. “This is stupid.”

“Go home, then,” his sister says plainly, not even phased by Lance’s outburst. “You want to quit, then that’s fine.”

“No!” Lance objects.

“Then stop complaining, and get back on the board,” Mari says with infinite patience.

Lance just glares at his sister for a long time. But finally, he sighs and begins mounting his board again, muttering to himself.

“Fine, fine,” he snaps. “But if I don’t get it in five, we’re going back in. I’ve got homework.”

Mari just smiles back at him. “That’s the annoyingly persistent little brother I know.”

 

It continues like that for more or less a year.

Anna Marie is pregnant again, this time with a girl, Lance is preparing for his first surfing competition, and his Tio Mannie is in remission.

They say the cancer should be gone, that everything looks good. But it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re in the clear yet. They probably never will be.

But it’s reason for celebration and a breath of relief regardless.

Lance notices that he sees less of his tia out on the beach at night. He imagines that she must finally be getting more sleep now that her husband is better. And Lance is glad for that.

But it doesn’t stop him from feeling just a bit lonelier.

He and Charlie _do_ continue to help his tio with the gardening however.

“I can do this boys,” Tio Mannie says.

“We know,” Charlie replies simply, still watering.

“But we figured we could do it together,” Lance says, grinning up at his tio. “What do you say?”

His uncle smiles.

It doesn’t look tired anymore.

 

Lance turns twelve, and his parents decide that they can maybe try him on some ADHD medication. Lance copes alright without it, but it’s still difficult, and he often finds himself impulsive, or forgetful, or fidgety, or distracted, or-

It’s not easy, is his point.

But he’s not sure how to feel about the idea of taking medication. The thought of having chemicals altering how his brain works sits a bit odd with him. He likes his brain, even with its quirks.

But his parents and doctors recommend it, so he decides to give it a shot.

The first morning he takes his new medication, he almost doesn’t notice a difference. But slowly, as the day progresses, Lance realizes that his typical ‘itch’ is greatly diminished. He doesn’t feel himself drifting as much, he remembers things a bit clearer, he just feels more ‘on’ than normal. And his never ending energy no longer feels intrusive in his own body.

It’s actually not too bad.

For the first time, school isn’t a struggle just to sit through, work feels more manageable, and his last few classes aren’t spent with him feeling more wound up than a jack in the box.

The first two days Lance begins to think, _why was I ever nervous about this to begin with?_

Then he begins to realize the side effects.

The third day he takes his medication, time seems to drag on. Instead of feeling as if he’s an overcharged battery, he feels as if he’s been entirely drained. His feet drag, his eyes feel heavy, and it feels like his head is stuffed full of cotton.

And when his mother offers him breakfast, Lance just shakes his head.

The past few days he hadn’t been super enthusiastic about eating, but he’d at least picked a bit at what was on his plate.

Today however, the thought of food turns his stomach.

“No thanks, Mama,” Lance says blearily.

“Are you okay, nene?” his mother asks.

“Yeah, just not hungry,” Lance admits.

His mother hums, pressing a hand against his forehead briefly.

“Well alright,” she says. “Just make sure you eat at lunch.

“I promise, mama.”

Lance does not eat lunch.

He means to of course, he would never intentionally break a promise, much less one to his mother. Much less one about food.

But the bleary feeling does not go away most of the day. There are a few moments of clarity here and there, but it mostly feels as if the day drags away, pulling him along by the pinky fingers. It isn’t pleasant.

So when he’s in front of his lunch plate and still does not feel hungry, he instead turns his attention to Tori and tries to focus his energy on his friend.

She knows something’s up, of course she does, but she keeps her comments and concerns to a minimum, which Lance appreciates.

It comes to a head when he’s practicing with Mari, because _of course_ it does.

Lance’s surfing is less than stellar today, and his sister notices, berating him and asking after his health in equal measures.

Lance assures her he’s fine, just feeling a bit off, and even mentions it may be the medication.

Marisol takes that in stride, and they continue with the lesson.

And Lance- he wants to do well, he really does. He wants to surf until the sun sets, until his legs are sore, until the seawater makes him sick.

But the problem is, he _already_ feels sick.

And he notices, about halfway through the lesson, that he starts to feel… floaty. Almost a bit lightheaded. Like a sense of vertigo had come down on him, without the world spinning bit.

It’s frustrating to be certain, but he tries to power through it. He keeps expecting the next wave that crashes into him to knock it out of him, but it doesn’t.

It’s not until Lance is in the middle of an aerial maneuver, coming down the wave, and reaching to grab the bottom of the board, that Lance realizes his mistake.

Because suddenly, his vision goes fuzzy, and black encroaches upon the edges as he moves too fast and-

He faints.

In the middle of surfing, on a wave, his vision goes dark, and for a split second Lance falls into unconsciousness, and falls into the ocean.

The good news- hitting the ocean reawakens him.

The bad news- he’s so disoriented that it takes him forever to realize which way is up, and how to grab onto his board.

After floating along the wave, being dragged underneath it, Lance manages to grab hold of the board, and bring himself to the surface, gasping and coughing, arms weak as he tries to cling to his surf board life raft.

“Lance!” a voice is shouting.

Lance turns his head slightly to see his sister, just a few meters away from him, paddling towards him as fast as she can, fear in her eyes.

“Lance, what happened?!” Mari cries.

He just shakes his head, too tired, and confused, and upset to think of a way to reply.

His sister frowns, reaching out to his board, steadying it.

“You’ve been off all day today, something’s up. You feeling okay?”

Lance just shook his head slowly.

His sister eyes him critically for a moment, then says, “Okay then. Let’s go back in.”

Lance just nods dejectedly, and Marisol helps him back onto the board properly before they both paddle in.

When they trudge back into the house, Mari follows Lance closely, her hand not pressed against his back, but waiting right there, just hovering, a reassurance that if he were to fall again, she’d be there.

 _Marisol is always there_ , Lance thinks distantly.

She has been since he was five after all.

It’s eventually Lance’s mother who realizes the problem when she starts to ask the right questions.

Had he eaten breakfast? No.

Had he eaten lunch? No.

Any snacks? No.

Drinking enough water? Not sure.

He hasn’t felt hungry all day.

It all culminated into a disaster for a growing young boy. A single day without a meal, and Lance just completely collapsed.

His parents realize after that, that the medication might not be the best dosage. When they call the doctors they advise Lance taking a half dose. It’s not as effective, they say, and it can still affect apatite. But to less of an extent, and it could still make the coping strategies easier.

After that, Lance often has to remind himself (or have Tori, or Mari, or Charlie, or his parents, or-) to eat on the days when he takes his medication. But he also finds that concentration is still easier, if not quite as attainable as it had been. And he finds that while his last few class periods are hell once more, he is actually able to get work done in them, something that was greatly impeding his in class grades before.

It gets better, but after that, Lance can’t help but notice that while he used to seem lean, now he always looks rather skinny.

 

Lance is glad to know one thing though: Not everything in life is too complicated.

“Hey.”

Lance opens his eyes blearily, blinking to see his sister his sister in front of his bed, her hand on his shoulder.

“Wake up sleepy head,” Mari says softly.

“Mari?” Lance mumbles as he sat up slowly, rubbing at his eyes. “What time is it?”

“Around midnight,” his sister says matter-of-factly. “Come on, get up.”

“Why?” Lance asks, his brain still trying to process what was going on. He isn’t entirely sure this _isn’t_ a dream.

His sister gives a small smirk. “We’re going to go surfing.”

Now Lance is almost sure he’s dreaming.

“What?” he replies dumbly.

“Come on, throw on your swim trunks, I’ll be waiting outside,” his sister says.

Lance just watches her leave, expression still scrunched up in confusion. He has half a mind to just go back to sleep, but he’s also a bit curious now…

Lance sighs and pulls the covers off of himself, setting his bare feet on the cold floor and padding over to his closet.

He supposes there are worse things to do the night before his competition.

(Not to say there aren’t better things, like _sleeping_.)

Lance trudges outside into the cool night air, and takes a deep breath. He feels awake almost instantly.

Marisol is waiting for him, and hands him his board when he turns to her.

“Alright, ready?”

“I guess,” Lance says warily. “Though I’m not sure why we’re going out in the middle of the night.”

Mari shrugs. “It’s tradition. I’ve been doing this since I was a little older than you. Every night, come out the night before a competition, when everyone else is asleep and just… feel. Relax. Remind myself of why I do this.”

Lance blinks up at her.

She smiles. “Come on, you’ll see.”

The water is cold, but not frigid, and Lance enjoys the feel of it. Stars cover the night sky, providing the perfect backdrop. And- it really is nice.

It’s casual, and low stakes, and they only do a little bit of actual surfing. Mostly, they paddle out and get to stare at the stars.

Lance is grinning like an idiot, but he can’t bring himself to care.

“I’m ready for tomorrow,” Lance declares at one point, as they stare up at the stars, and he begins to name all of the formations that he knew, and all the ones that his Tia Amelia had taught him.

“I know,” Mari says with a nod. “You’ve been ready for a long time.”

Lance frowns at that, and looks towards her, but for once doesn’t ask the question that’s on the tip of his tongue. He knows when his sister has more to say.

Mari pauses before continuing, “But in the end, it’s out of your hands,” she admits. “The waves are what ultimately decide out there.”

Lance nods carefully. “Well, yeah?”

Mari shakes her head. “All that training, it’s important. But even the best surfer’s intuition can come down to nothing. If you catch a bum wave, there’s nothing much to do. It’s all up to chance.”

Lance’s brow furrows at that.

“That’s why I come out here,” she says. “Just to… remind myself. Of why I surf.”

Lance considers that for a moment. “But you almost never catch a bad wave,” he says.

Mari gives a slight smile. “I’ve been lucky.”

“No one’s lucky all the time,” Lance points out.

“No,” Mari answers, and then fishes under the high neck of her wetsuit, tugging out a black cord, “but I like to think I have a bit of help.”

She holds up the silver charm on the necklace, a sixpence supposedly used by pirates and traders centuries ago. Lance has seen it hundreds, if not thousands of times before. Not just on his sister, but on many native Cubans.

But now, Lance leans forward and stares at it with renewed awe.

“Always thought of it a bit like my own lucky charm,” Marisol admits. “I always seem to get lucky out on the water when I have it with me.”

Lance reaches out a hand to touch the charm, but Mari pulls back smirking, _tsking_ at him.

“Nice try, hermanito, but this doesn’t leave my neck,” she said.

Lance pouts at that. “Aw, come on,” he complains. “I just thought…maybe I could wear it for the competition tomorrow? And then give it back? _Please_ ,” he says, drawing out the word. “Just until I find my own!”

His sister narrows her eyes at him. “I’ll think about it,” she says.

They go inside not long after that. But before Lance turns to go back to his room and catch what little bit of sleep he still can, Mari sets a hand on his shoulder.

He turns to face her, questioning, when she holds out the necklace to him, and Lance feels his face split into a huge grin.

He takes the piece with reverence, clutching it tightly in his hand.

His sister just smiles at him, then moves on to her own room.

Lance finds himself falling asleep to comforting feeling of rubbing his thumb across the coin, imagining all the hands it may have passed through, the stories it could tell, and what it could bring him.

 

The next day, Lance’s nerves are _considerably_ wracked.

“Calm down, Lancito,” his mother says, her hands placed comfortingly on his shoulders, “I promise you’re going to do great. You trained hard.”

Lance nods, swallowing hard.

He’s shaking. He can’t remember ever being this nervous before a _swimming_ competition before. What is _wrong_ with him?

Most of his family is there. His parents, his grandparents, Charlie, and Marisol all are lined up around him, watching the competition, waiting for his time to compete.

His Tia Amelia and Tio Mannie had wanted to be there, but his Tia is currently working, and Tio Mannie still has trouble staying in the sun for long periods of time.

“Next up in the junior division, number twelve, Lance Alverez,” comes the booming announcer voice over the crappy speakers.

Lance turns to look up at his mom, his eyes wide.

She just pushes his bangs away from his face, and hugs him.

“You’re going to do wonderfully.”

Lance tries to calm his breathing as his father and grandparents hug him as well, and his brother ruffles his hair.

Lance stops, takes a deep breath, and looks towards his sister.

Marisol doesn’t smile, doesn’t hug him, doesn’t even say anything. Instead she just looks him in the eye, and nods.

And that one thing tells Lance everything she wants to say.

He nods back, jerky, still a bit uncertain. But he takes another deep breath, and runs his thumb over the silver charm one last time before slipping it over his neck, tucking it under his wetsuit to ensure it doesn’t fall off in the water.

“Okay,” he says, grabbing his surf board from where it was sitting stuck in the ground, and marching towards the waiting area.

The medallion is warm against his skin, and so is the sun. The water keeps his legs and arms cool though, creating a kind of contrast, making Lance feel as if he’s walking a thin line between two extremes.

It makes him want to dive straight into the water, away from all the pressure and the heat.

As soon as he paddles out further into the ocean, he stops himself for a moment, and just breathes. Just feels the sea around him, feels the metal against his skin, and in that moment, he just- knows.

He _can_ do this.

The wave he rides isn’t as large as some of the others, but it’s more controlled, more balanced, giving Lance the perfect opportunity to execute three aerial maneuvers, and a half barrel with perfect accuracy. At the end of it, he’s still standing, wobbling on the board, as he no longer has the momentum behind him, but still upright.

He can hear his family cheering, and his face lights up with pride.

He has no idea how the judges will think he did, but in that moment, he doesn’t care. _He’s_ proud of himself.

When he runs back up to shore, still grinning ear to ear, it’s Marisol who gets to him first, who throws her arms around him in a bear hug and swings him around.

“Lance, that was flawless!” She says, hugging him tightly, beaming down at him with pride.

Usually Lance would tell his sister to get off, or make some joke about cooties. But this time, he can only smile up at her.

He doesn’t really get time to recover from _that_ before his entire family is swarming him.

And Lance- he feels _amazing_.

He feels even better when five contestants later, he’s announced the winner.

Lance honestly can’t remember the last time he had seen his family so proud of him. They actually choose to celebrate by going to one of Lance’s favorite restaurants, and letting him order whatever he wants.

His family coos over him the entire time, and Lance can’t help but preen under the attention.

But he also can’t help but feel his spirits fall a bit every time his parents or grandparents turn to Mari and say something like, “Remember when you won your first tournament?” or “Lance is growing up to be just like his hermana!”

He knows he should be proud to be compared to his sister, and in some ways he is.

But it also takes something away from the victory, something that makes it feel as if he’s treading new ground. Instead, it feels like shoes to fill. Like he’s the shadow of the ‘real’ thing.

Lance isn’t particularly fond of the idea.

But still, it doesn’t put a damper in the festivities, and the celebration lasts well into the evening.

Lance is thoroughly exhausted by the time he is sent off to bed.

But before he can climb into is pajamas and into his sheets a voice clears behind him.

Lance turns to see Marisol behind him, brow raised.

“Forgetting something, hermanito?”

Lance blinks slowly at her before the wires in his mind connect.

“Oh!” he says, and pulls the charm out from under his shirt. “Right, right, here.” He hands it to over to her, rubbing the back of his neck. “Uh- thanks for- letting me use it, ya know? It really seemed to work.” He gives her a sheepish smile.

He doesn’t notice his sister’s arms wrapping around him until his cheek is pressed against her shoulder. The hug is softer, less urgent than before.

“I’m proud of you,” Mari says, pulling back. “I could have never pulled off something that great at your age. Trust me.”

And with that, she left. And Lance- Lance isn’t beaming. Instead his smile is a bit softer.

But he’s still _overwhelmingly_ happy.

Somehow, his sister always knows the right things to say.

The next few months Lance feels like he’s riding an all-time high. He’s won two surfing competitions so far, and placed second in another. His family is happy, his Tio Mannie is officially able to return to most activities, and Lance is no longer struggling through the most basic of things thanks to his medication.

Things seem to be going well. So for once, when his abuelita plans for their annual family reunion, Lance doesn’t feel his typical small twinge of dread that comes from some of his family’s teasing jokes.

So it is of course the time where _everything_ goes to hell.

His abuelita spends most of their welcome cooing over Lance’s newfound success, and says that she plans on making his favorite desert that night, turrónes.

His cousins of course couldn’t care less about Lance’s surfing, but that doesn’t really bother him. They’ve never been the ones that Lance felt a need to impress. Instead he just enjoys their company, talking about school, splashing each other in the pool and doing tricks that they admittedly shouldn’t.

Lance gets to watch over his younger cousins a bit and spend some time with his nephew, who’s now nearly two years old. He even gets to hold his new niece, Gabrielle for the first time (it’s significantly less scary now that she’s nearly a month old and no longer looks so petite that even the slightest of wrong moves could break her).

Personally, Lance has always really liked babysitting. It isn’t much of a hassle, the kids are cute, and he gets to just be silly around them. It’s always just kind of nice.

Even Charlie hangs out around him a bit. Now that he’s older and nearing his last few years of high school, Charlie had mellowed out a bit. He’s no longer as uptight about things, and just generally seemed more laid back. He no longer pushed Lance away. Ever since the sailing incident Lance found his brother more and more agreeable to his presence. It’s encouraging.

It is especially nice now, when he’s able to climb on his brother’s shoulders and play water chicken with his cousins Tamera and Liam. Liam is admittedly a bit smaller than Lance, which could make this a bit unfair. But then again, Tamera is built like a tank, so he has a bit steadier of a base.

Lance is pretty sure it’s a draw, considering how they both topple into the water at the same time.

He still tries to declare it a win though.

As they’re in the middle of squabbling however, his abuelita pushes open the sliding glass door, and calls out, “Tamera, Tres! Come help move the couch into the spare bedroom!”

Charlie shakes his head, and shoots Lance a smile, ruffling his hair before following Tamera in.

Lance just laughs.

He spends hours out in the pool, longer than most of his family.

A lot of them have filtered out of the water by that point and are snacking on chips or M&M’s.

“I’m going to the bathroom,” Lance announces eventually and pulls himself out of the water, barely bothering to towel off before venturing into the house.

There’s really no one else in his abuelita’s home at the moment. There may be the odd aunt, uncle, or cousin who’s off taking a nap, but most everyone is outside.

Lance pads across the tile floor, his footsteps echoing in the small hallway, towards the bathroom, when something catches his eye. The door across the way is slightly ajar, just barely cracked enough for Lance to catch a glimpse inside the small room.

He almost immediately recognizes Anna Marie’s husband, Nicholas.

Lance pauses, raising a hand to the door, about to call out to his brother-in-law, when something stops him.

To this day, Lance isn’t sure what it is that made him stop and watch, instead of just following his first impulse like normal. Maybe it’s instinct, or fate, or something.

But Lance stops just short of calling out to him, and something catches his attention.

Nicholas is not alone in the room.

At first Lance wonders if it’s Anna Marie in the room with him, but, no. The person on the bed in front of his uncle is far too small to be his eldest sister.

In fact, they’re just _small_.

It takes Lance a moment of staring to process that it’s his nine year old cousin in the room, Anya.

And Lance feels his stomach slide sideways because something suddenly seems very _very_ wrong.

Lance is practically holding his breath as he glances back towards the entrance of the hallway, and then leans forward, pressing his eye to the crack of the door to see into the room better.

Nicholas is bent over his younger cousin, and Lance can’t see much. Can’t see Anya’s face, or where Nicholas’s mouth is, or where his hands have gone.

But he does see his brother-in-law’s hips positioned over his cousin’s, rocking back and forth.

And as soon as the action registers in Lance’s brain, he scrambles away from the door, suddenly feeling as if he’s going to be sick, his mind racing as he sprints back outside.

As soon as the glass door slides shut behind him, and Lance is on the patio of the front door, he stops, gasping for breath.

“Lance?” someone says, and Lance jumps at the voice.

One of his uncle’s, a more distant relative, looks down at him with concern, reaching out a hand.

“Are you alright?”

Lance pulls away quickly. “Yeah- yeah-I’m fine.”

He stops.

Why is he lying?

He- he knew what he had seen… right?

What should he do?

What is he supposed to do?

The mere question nearly causes Lance to start hyperventilating again.

“You seem awfully pale,” his uncle, Jordan, he remembers now, says.

“I’m just not feeling well.”

Lance doesn’t know why he’s lying.

Why isn’t he stopping this?

Why is he running away?

But his thoughts feel like cogs of a machine that haven’t been oiled in years. Getting caught on one another, taking forever to turn over.

He knows why.

What if he’s wrong?

He isn’t all that sure what he was seeing… is he?

He doesn’t even know who he should tell if he was right.

But also… it’s Anna Marie’s _husband_. A man Lance actually _likes_. How- how could he be capable of something like that?

And what if he denies it? It isn’t as if Lance has proof.

He feels sick to his stomach, and a bit faint.

He makes a point of sitting down, and staring down at his bare feet.

He doesn’t know what to do.

Within the hour everyone files in for dinner.

Anya is back outside, dipping her feet in the water, splashing and laughing with the rest of their family.

But Lance can’t help but notice now.

Notice that she seems a bit shaken, a bit down trodden, troubled. A bit jumpy almost.

But it’s subtle. Small.

He almost wants to laugh at himself for handling the whole thing so much worse than she is.

It makes him doubt himself.

Dinner is… hellish. Lance sits just a few seats away from Nicholas, and has to pretend to not be freaking out, to not be thinking about the possible sexual predator eating with his family.

He tries not to think about Anya, who seems to pale considerably when she is placed across the table from Lance’s brother-in-law.

“What’s wrong, nieto?” his abuelita asks as Lance picks at his food. “Are the turrónes overcooked?”

Lance shakes his head quickly. “Oh, no, Abuelita, I’m just a bit… water logged.”

“Lance? Water logged?” someone laughs across the table. “I never thought I’d see the day.”

The table chuckles. Lance’s smile is strained.

He doesn’t think he can eat a bite without throwing up.

He needs to tell someone.

He _has_ to tell someone.

He keeps sneaking glances at Anna Marie the whole time, Carson at her side, not far from Nicholas. What before seemed heartwarming now sends a chill down Lance’s spine.

But the thought keeps coming back to him: If he says anything- it will _ruin_ his sister’s family. It will _destroy_ Anna Marie. It will leave Carson and Gabrielle without a dad.

Lance will have wrecked _everything_.

It is after dinner, after everyone has gone to bed, that Lance realizes he will not be getting any sleep that night. Instead he pushes himself out of bed and begins to pad down the halls. It should be creepy, walking around his abuelita’s house in the dark, by himself. But Lance is far too preoccupied with real monsters to focus on imaginary ones.

He still has no idea what he should do.

And then, as he’s walking past the bathroom, he gets the startle of his life, when he suddenly runs into someone else.

Lance lets out a yelp and jumps away, heart pounding.

“Oh,” says a familiar voice, and Lance feels like he’s sinking, “sorry, Lance, I didn’t see you there.”

Nicholas smiles down at him. Lance just swallows thickly.

“You going to the bathroom too?” his sister’s husband asks.

Lance just shakes his head.

Is he sweating?

He thinks he’s sweating.

“No?” His brother-in-law frowns. “Can’t sleep?”

“Yeah,” Lance says, licking at his lips, suddenly feeling as if he was parched.

Nicholas nods. “I can understand that. Nightmares?” he asks, turning to face Lance fully.

Lance has to physically stop himself from pulling back.

“Something like that,” he mutters.

Nicholas gives him a sympathetic smile. “I’m sorry to hear that. I know those can be rough,” he says, and reaches out a hand. Lance literally freezes in place as his brother-in-law sets a heavy hand on his shoulder. “Try to get some sleep though, alright?”

“Okay,” Lance says, his voice far too raspy.

As soon as Nicholas’s hand leaves his shoulder, Lance sprints back to his bedroom, heedless of how odd his behavior may seem.

His heart is beating out of his chest, and he is gasping, and his eyes are watering, and he’s suddenly _terrified_.

Because the second he was looking up at Nicholas in the dark, alone, his first thought was, _What if I’m next?_

He knows he’s being ridiculous. But it’s still upsetting.

Lance spends most of the night lying rigid under the covers.

It’s sometime before sunrise, when he hears Gabrielle crying, that something awful occurs to him.

What if it’s not just Anya?

What if there were other cousins, or kids, or God- what about _Carson_?

And if it isn’t now, who’s to say it wouldn’t be later?

And- as awful and self-serving as it might seem- that’s how Lance makes up his mind.

That morning, Lance waits until most everyone has filtered back outside. He knows however that his sister has just finished feeding Gabrielle and will be alone for a little while, rocking her back to sleep.

Lance stands outside the room and takes a deep breath, steeling himself.

He doesn’t feel nearly brave enough.

He knocks on the door anyway.

“Come in,” Anna Marie calls.

When Lance steps in, he’s sure to close the door firmly behind him, and check the room.

Nicholas is nowhere in sight.

“Lance?” his sister asks, Gabrielle in her arms.

Lance doesn’t reply, his breath catching in his throat again.

 _You can do this, you can do this, you **have** to do this_ , the voice in his head chants.

“Lance, what’s wrong?” Anna Marie asks turning to face him fully, concern coloring her features.

Lance looks back at her, determined. But he’s crying.

It’s awful.

It’s an awful thirty minutes of explaining what he had seen, and clarifying, and making sure that his eldest sister does not pass out with her newborn daughter in her arms.

Anna Marie seems stricken.

Eventually, Lance asks his abuelita to call Anya in.

The denial is short lived, and the confession makes Lance shudder and cry, and then all three of them are crying, no four, because Gabrielle’s crying now, and everything is just _awful_.

(Over a year, Anya admits. Anytime her parents had her stay over at Anna Marie’s house or they had a family get together. _A year_.)

 

It’s a horrible day.

The police are called, but they don’t tell anyone until it’s already too late, and Nicholas is being tackled to the ground and forced into handcuffs.

Lance sees Carson and Anna Marie crying, and his family crying, or letting out shouts of horror, and Tio Miguel is screaming, and holding Anya, his little girl, and screaming more, and Lance is genuinely afraid.

He wants to be relieved. He did the right thing… didn’t he?

But instead he feels horrified.

He really has ruined everything, hasn’t he?

Before they cart Nicholas off, they take a moment at the doorway.

“Anna!” Nicholas is calling. “Anna, you can’t be serious about believing this? I’m your _husband_!”

Anna Marie’s eyes are cold.

She had stopped crying by the time they called the police.

“He’s _lying_ Anna,” Nicholas tries again. “This is some fucked up ploy for attention. Are you really going to let some lying brat tear our entire family apart? Ruin our lives? Our _kids’_ lives? Anna, please, I’m begging you to be reasonable.”

Lance shrinks at his words, but Anna Marie just sets her hands firmly on her youngest brother’s shoulders.

“I trust my brother, Nicholas,” she says. “If you’re right then you’ll prove your innocence in court. If not, then _keeping_ you in our lives really _would_ ruin us.”

Lance looks up at his sister in shock, even as Nicholas is hauled out of the house with a horrific, animalistic scream.

His sister looks down at him, her eyes shining with unshed tears. “I believe you,” she says softly.

And Lance-

Breaks.

He turns himself into his sister’s embrace, sobbing freely.

She just wraps her arms around him, and holds him close, stroking his hair and shushing him softly.

“You did the right thing,” she says, “You did the right thing.”

It makes something in Lance’s heart ache, but it also feels like a weight off his shoulders. Something ugly and black that has been scraped away.

The day is awful.

But they still have family.

 

In the end, Nicholas pleads guilty two weeks into the investigation.

Anya _hadn’t_ been the only one. Both evidence and testimony are pretty damning.

He goes to jail.

 

Anna Marie formally files for a divorce, and within the month she is moving back down to their family’s home town of Varadero, having left her job behind, along with the house she had lived in with her husband.

Lance tries to not feel guilty, and rationally he knows he shouldn’t. But it still leaves something uncomfortable in his chest to see his normally so well put together and smiling sister look so frazzled and upset.

She lives in their home for the time being, but she finds a job rather quickly, so she says it will only be until a house she can afford opens up around town.

She puts on a brave face most of the time, for Carson and Gabby in particular, the former of which still sometimes asks about his dad.

It’s difficult, but manageable.

Lance also gets to spend more time with his elder sister and nephew this way. He finds that Anna Marie gives great advice. She’s not the regimented ruler that Marisol is, or the laid back friend that Charlie acts as. Instead she’s someone to go to for guidance, or just for a fun time playing with her kids.

Playing with two, going on three years old Carson became one of his favorite past times

So… things aren’t perfect. But they get better.

Eventually.

 

Lance is thirteen and already considered a rising star in surfing and swimming.

There are schools already scoping him out, offering scholarships, benefits, etc.

But for now, Lance is content to just spend time with his family and Tori and the ocean.

And, recently, astronomy class.

Lance hadn’t known before this year that his school even offered alternative sciences. And to think, he almost agreed to take biology!

Instead, when there was a scheduling conflict due to his specialized Literature course (they had finally figured out that smaller classes, with more direct interaction worked much better for managing ADHD), the school advisor had recommended one of the alternative science courses in its place.

Lance jumped at the chance to take Astronomy.

He can’t lie, the class steals his heart a bit. There are only twelve students in the entire class, and most of them act like they’re struggling to stay awake. But Lance is _enraptured_. He can’t remember the last time a class held this much fascination for him.

The teacher’s a bit of a dork, always tripping over himself, and a bit too enthusiastic. But it’s _contagious_. And Lance finds himself growing more and more passionate about the topics the longer he gets to talk to the instructor (it’s not like anyone else was going to speak up in that class). His teacher, as it turns out, also has a bit of a science crush on one of the Galaxy Garrison astronauts.

“Who’s that, Mr.Briggs?” Lance asks one day after class, the sight of a new poster up on the wall catching his eye.

It’s a profile picture of a young astronaut, dark hair, long lashes, and an easy smile.

Lance isn’t entirely sure he isn’t just a model posing in an astronaut’s uniform.

“Hmm?” Briggs turns to look at the poster. “Oh! That,” he says, pointing to the man, “ _that_ is Takashi Shirogane. One of the most talented up and coming fighter pilots of his generation.”

Lance cocks his head at that, considering the man through squinted eyes. “Talented in… modeling?”

Briggs lets out a laugh. “No, no, Lance. He was the pilot on the Saturn Titan’s mission.”

Lance perks up at that. “Wait, really?”

He remembers hearing something about that. About a talented young pilot that had saved his entire crew when a mission went wrong.

Mr.Briggs nods. “Yes! The path around the rings hadn’t been clear, as had been planned. He had to maneuver around the debris, practically blind! It was honestly a miracle that they didn’t crash!”

Lance’s eyes widen at that, and he looks back up at the poster, awed.

“That’s amazing,” he says.

“It is,” Briggs agrees, smiling. “It’s quite incredible. Just imagine what it had to be like in that pilot’s seat. How difficult and heart poudning it must have been.”

Lance imagines.

He may or may not go out and buy a very similar poster for his room.

Charlie just gives him a _look_ at that, but doesn’t say anything, while Tori just snickers. No one else seems to notice or find it worth comment.

Lance and Mr.Briggs have a lot of conversations about space though. About how massive it is. About how much they know. About how much they don’t know.

And Lance- he can’t help but imagine himself exploring the deep reaches of space again, watching the stars go by, exploring new planets. It’s an idea that he knows he indulges far too much.

“Do you want to be an astronaut, Lance?” Mr. Briggs asks him one day.

Lance laughs, shaking his head. “Oh, no, no. That’s… that would be awesome, but no, I don’t think that’s really my calling.”

“Oh?” the man asks. “You have something else in mind?”

Lance scratches at the back of neck. “Uh, yeah. I- I’m a pretty good surfer. So, ya know…”

“Ah,” the man says, nodding. “That’s right, I forgot. You’re the swimmer.” He smiles. “Well, I’m sure you’ll do wonderfully. But I’m certain you could be a pilot as well. You’re a bright, gifted young man.”

Lance blushes, preening at the praise. It was so rare to hear something so kind from one of his teachers, that it leaves him feeling warm, and a bit overwhelmed.

“Thanks,” he says.

And he really, _really_ means it.

 

Lance is willing to admit that Tori is his only real friend. He has a lot of ‘friends’ technically. He’s a pretty open and talkative person, so it’s a bit unavoidable that he’s on good terms with a lot of his classmates. But Tori’s who he hangs out with, who criticizes badly dressed tourists with him, who knows he kind of likes guys the way he likes girls, who’s just _been there_.

But he also realizes that there’s a bit of a downside to only having one real friend.

Opportunities to have the typical teenager experience (and Lance would like to say, for the record, as someone who is now officially a teenager, that he expects to fully experience _everything_ : the dating, the parties, the experimentation, the rule breaking, all of it) are a bit limited. There’s no big gaggle of friends for them to insert themselves into and cause mayhem with. There aren’t any parties, or much sneaking, or anything like that. Lance is honestly chomping at the bit for the opportunity to get his first real, bonafide teenage experience.

Tori is (mostly) fed up with him.

He gets his perfect opportunity however one day when Charlie tries to sneak out.

Lance isn’t stupid. He knows that his brother, now seventeen, is pretty popular, and often goes out to have fun. (And he knows that his parents often are none the wiser. Or at least pretend not to be.)

So when Tori is over one night, and Lance sees Charlie with his keys, and Tiffany, (Charlie’s girlfriend? Lance isn’t sure) at the door, he sees it as the perfect opportunity.

“Where ya going?” Lance asks, grinning widely at his brother.

Charlie stops and looks back at him, eyeing him cautiously.

“To study,” Charlie says.

“Uh-huh.” Lance raises a brow. “Think we could come and… ‘study’ with you?” he asks, putting finger quotes around the world ‘study.’

Charlie’s eyes narrow.

“Absolutely not.”

Lance had been expecting this, so instead of feeling dejected he just fakes a sigh, leaning dramatically against the coat rack.

“But Charlie,” he says, sticking his lip out in a pout, “I thought we were supposed to be spending time together?”

Charlie isn’t moved at the display.

“No.”

Lance shrugs, standing up straight again. “Oh well, then. I guess I’ll just have to let Mama know about you sneaking out with you _girlfriend_ ,” he says, making a mock kissy face at his brother.

Charlie pushes his younger brother away, clearly annoyed. “Lance, don’t be a little shit.”

Lance takes a deep breath, then, at the top of his lungs, “Ma-”

Charlie’s hand covers his mouth immediately. “Cut it out!” his older brother snaps.

Lance licks his hand, causing Charlie to pull away with disgust, and grins up at his brother. “Take us with you.”

“No,” Charlie says again.

“Oh let them come, Charlie,” Tiffany sighs from where she’s watching with mild amusement in the doorway. “It’s not that big of a deal.”

Charlie makes an aborted sound, motioning to Lance. “But-”

He glances at Lance, who’s grinning back at him with a Cheshire smile.

Charlie groans. “Fine,” he says. “You can come.”

“Yes!” Lance cheers, pumping his fist in the air. “Tori, come on!” he calls up to his friend who was waiting at the top of the staircase.

She glares down at him, but relents with an eye roll, stomping down the stairs.

“For the record,” she says, “I don’t like this.”

He grins, throwing his arm around her shoulder. “Oh, come on, Debby Downer! It’ll be fun. Our first teenager party!”

He turns to call upstairs. “Mama! I’m going with Charlie to study!”

Charlie literally face-palms.

“Okay, honey, be back before 10:30 though!” his mother calls back.

“Let’s go,” Charlie grumbles, grabbing the car keys and stomping outside.

 

The house isn’t necessarily ‘jumping’ like Lance had expected, and there aren’t kids pouring out of the doors, so overcrowded that no one could even move.

No, there are probably only twenty to thirty teenagers there, all the lights were on, and the music is loud, but reasonable. There’s alcohol available, because of course there is, but his brother makes him promise not to touch the stuff.

Lance is fine with that. He doesn’t really want the first time he tries beer to be his first party. He’d like to enjoy one before the other.

Tori seems a bit bitter still, but she doesn’t stay uptight at least.

They both chat a bit with the other teenagers at the party, most of which just coo over them, and they stay on the outskirts of Charlie and Tiff’s friend group.

It’s not as special or scandalous as Lance had envisioned, but it’s still pretty fun.

That is- until truth or dare.

Charlie groans at the mention of the game, but Lance is ecstatic.

“Yeah!” he cries, jumping up and down. (While he hasn’t had any beer, he may or may not have had several sodas… which may or may not have contained red dye.)

The older kids laugh.

“This is seriously cliché,” Charlie mutters as about twelve of them all sit down in a circle in some stranger’s living room.

“But it’s a _fun_ cliché,” the apparent ring leader, named Caleb, says.

 _They_ may be a little drunk.

They don’t have a regular beer bottle, so instead they use the bottle of an emptied Mexican coke.

It’s not quite as rebellious, but Lance supposes that beer cans are far more practical than glass bottles.

Lance is quick to sit with them, and gives a cautionary glance to make sure that no one’s going to ask that he be left out of the fun. But they aren’t even looking at him. So he just grins and motions to Tori to sit next to him.

She sighs, plopping down on his left, cross legged, and giving him a halfhearted glare.

“It’ll be fun,” Lance says, smiling.

“That’s what you’ve been saying all night,” Tori says, grimacing.

“And hasn’t it been?”

Tori shrugs and rolls her eyes. “It’s been fine. Boring, mostly.”

Lance sticks his tongue out at her. “Well this time, it’ll be fun.”

“If you say so, hotshot,” Tori says turning her attention back to the bottle in the middle.

Caleb goes first, because as ring leader you always have to go first, it was just the rules.

“Dare,” Tiffany decides, voice confident as the bottle lands on her.

The small group lets out whoops and whistles at that.

“I dare you to grab Tony’s key chain,” Caleb says, smirking.

Tiffany scoffs as she stands up. “That’s hardly a dare, Caleb.”

“No,” the other boy concedes, “but it will be hilarious when he freaks out.”

The rest of them laugh, including Lance as Tiff grabs the guy’s keychain, which held the keys to his house, and several small action figures that seemed to be from an anime or something like that.

Lance has no clue who Tony is, but he imagines that it’s one of the guys that disappeared upstairs a while back ago.

“Truth,” Charlie says, bored, when the bottle eventually lands on him.

The girl across from him giggles, saying, “Okay then, have you and Tiff banged yet, or are you guys still going with the ‘just friends’ thing?”

“Nat!” Tiffany cries, looking scandalized.

“No,” Charlie replies, rolling his eyes.

There are a few disappointed mumblings, and Lance pulls a face.

Yuck.

He doesn’t want to think about his brother having sex. Like at all. As far as he’s concerned, all of his siblings are as celibate as a Catholic priest. Anna Marie just conceived her kids through osmosis or something.

Eventually, the bottle lands on an angry looking girl at the far side of the circle, with a half shaved head, and black skinny jeans. (Lance has been mentally labelling her ‘Emo girl’)

“Dare,” she says, seemingly unhappy at having attention called to her.

(Why she sat down then, if that was a case, is a mystery to Lance.)

The guy who had spun the bottle grins.

“Okay, Beth, I dare you to play a _real_ round of spin the bottle. Whoever it lands on gets seven minutes in heaven.”

“That’s stupid as fuck,” Beth deadpans.

The guy shrugs. “You chose dare.”

Emo girl glares at him, but grabs the bottle and sends it spinning on its side.

Lance watches with slightly detached fascination, until-

It lands pointing at him.

Lance looks up in surprise at that, his stomach swooping slightly as his eyes met the Emo girl’s, and he gives her what he hopes is a flirtatious smile.

“Well, guess it’s you and me then,” Lance says, leaning forward, his elbows propped against his knee.

“Hell no,” Charlie says, grabbing the collar of Lance’s shirt and jerking him back. “Spin again.”

“What?!” Lance squawks. “Why?”

“Oh come on,” Caleb says, laughing, “let the kid have some fun!”

“He’s thirteen,” Charlie snaps, “I’m not going to have you guys defiling my little brother!” He pauses. “No offense, Beth.”

Beth wrinkles her nose. “None taken.”

“Come on,” the other guy drawls lazily, “Beth’s only fifteen. It’s not that big of a difference. Besides, kid gets his first kiss from an older lady. That’s like- immediate bragging rights in middle school.”

“He’s right!” Lance says.

Tori remains suspiciously quiet, glaring at the ground as if she wanted to carve into it with laser vision she’s working to develop.

“No,” Beth says stubbornly. “I’m not going to be some cradle robber, that’s just gross.”

“Well, I guess you’re backing out then,” the guy says, smirking. “The rule was _whoever_ the bottle landed on. No do overs.”

“Seriously, I’ll do it,” Lance exclaims, throwing his hands up.

Emo girl narrows her eyes.

“Fine,” she practically hisses.

“Hey, I’m still not okay with this!” Charlie says.

“No one cares, Alvarez!” someone else shouts.

Beth stands up, still glaring. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to screw up a thirteen year old’s virtue.”

Charlie just sighs.

“Sure, okay, but like- just for the record,” Lance says as he stands as well, “it’d be totally fine if you did.”

She just pushes him towards the nearest closet.

“Seven minutes!” the guy responsible for the dare calls. “Everyone set your watches!”

Lance is shoved in the closet and waits for a moment as someone outside sets a timer on their phone, and Emo girl, Beth, sets her watch.

Tori’s staring at them, looking… kind of upset actually. And Charlie looks a bit frazzled, with Tiffany’s arm around him, most likely holding him in place.

“Aaaaannnnd, go!” the guy says.

Beth slams the door closed.

For a moment they’re left in complete darkness, and then Beth pulls at the chain hanging from the ceiling and light floods the small space.

Lance actually has to blink for a moment in order for his eyes to adjust at the light coming from the small, exposed lightbulb on the closet ceiling.

There’s an awkward pause, as both he and Beth stare at each other for a moment.

Then Beth just sighs, looking away as she shakes her head.

“Great,” she mumbles, pushing back against the wall and sliding down into a sitting position.

She just stares at the blank wall glumly, not even bothering to look at Lance.

Lance scratches at the back of his neck, feeling a bit out of place. The silence stretches on.

Finally, Lance asks, “Umm… so should we be…uh-”

“I’m not kissing you, kid,” Beth says, turning to look back at him, her eyes harsh.

Lance notices for the first time that she has a nose piercing.

“Oh,” Lance says, deflating slightly. “W- why not?”

“Besides the fact that it’d be creepy as fuck?” Beth offers. “I have a girlfriend.”

“Oh,” Lance repeats. Then-“ _Ohhhhhh_.”

Beth looks at him like she’s daring him to say something.

“Oh, that’s totally cool,” Lance says quickly. “I mean, my cousin’s gay, and I have no issue with it- not that there’d be any reason for it to be an issue, my family’s pretty progressive- and hey! I really, really like girls too, like- who wouldn’t like girls? Girls are awesome! And I mean, sometimes I notice guys are really nice looking to, but I uh- I don’t really know about that yet, like whether or not I like them yet, I mean it feels a little weird- not that it’s weird to like people of the same gender! Just weird for me, you know, cuz I don’t really know what to do about it- I mean, I’d kind of like to kiss a guy, I just don’t know-!”

“Jesus,” Beth cuts in, “I do not have the patience to deal with some kid’s sexuality crisis.”

Lance pouts at that. “It’s not a crisis. And hey, be nice! I was trying to open up to you!”

She raises a brow. “That’s what you call that?”

“Yes,” Lance replies, stubbornly.

She shakes her head. “Shouldn’t have bothered.”

Lance frowns. “Bothered?” he asks, a bit insulted.

“With this stupid party,” Beth sneers. “God, I hate half the people here!”

“Oh,” Lance says. “Why come then?” he asks, finally sliding down the wall opposite of her.

He wasn’t going to get that kiss it seemed, so it didn’t really matter.

She huffs. “My girlfriend, Ginny, asked me to.”

Lance’s brow creased. “Which one’s she?”

“The one who fucked off an hour in to go screw around with Tony!” Beth snarls.

Lance blinks at that. “Wait, I thought she liked-”

“We’re both bi,” Beth says impatiently. “But she just- she always seems to do shit like this. One second it’s, ‘you’re the one for me,’ and then she’s saying shit like she wants an open relationship. Which, fine, whatever. Not my thing, but I’m not going to say no, and just end it!”

“Bi?” Lance murmurs, brow furrowing. Huh.

“Yeah, bisexual,” Beth says, raising a brow. “Liking more than one gender.”

“Oh, yeah, yeah,” Lance says, shaking his head. “I mean, I knew that existed… kinda. I just- never really thought about it.”

He pauses, mulling over what Beth had said.

“But uh, it sounds like you… wanted to tell her no?” he offers.

Beth shakes her head. “Forget it. I was ranting.”

Lance shrugs. “Well, what else are we going to do for the next five minutes? Sit in awkward silence?”

“That was the plan, yeah,” Beth says.

“Come on, why wouldn’t you tell her no if you didn’t like the whole open relationship… thing?”

Is that really a thing that people do? Lance has no clue.

She looks away. “Like I said. It wasn’t worth the argument or losing her. But she pulls shit like this. Guilting me into doing something, or dressing some way. Or dragging me off to somewhere I don’t want to be, then ditching me.” Beth pulls her knees up to her chin. “I’m starting to feel like an afterthought.”

Now that’s certainly something Lance can relate to.

“Sounds like you’re not happy,” Lance suggests.

Beth’s brow furrows at that.

“Isn’t that what relationships are supposed to be about,” he says. “Being happy?”

“Life’s not that simple,” Beth replies plainly.

“Sounds simple to me?” he says. “Maybe just try… talking to her?”

“Easier said than done,” Beth snaps.

“Most things are,” Lance replies, tilting his head slightly. “But if you’re not happy, and you want to know if the relationship’s worth keeping… shouldn’t you try to communicate with her a bit better?”

“What would I even say?” she murmurs.

“I don’t know,” Lance says, slightly exasperated. “Just- what you said here! That you’re feeling like you and your feelings are being ignored. That she’s being pushy. Any of it. All of it!”

“She’ll take it as an attack,” Beth says.

“So?” Lance challenges. “Be nice, but be honest. If she really has your interest in heart, then she’ll stop long enough to think about it.”

Beth looks back toward him, expression considering. “Huh… you know what kid, you aren’t half bad?”

Lance beams back at her.

“One minute guys!” Someone sing songs from the other side of the closet door.

They both look toward the door, then glance back towards each other.

Lance shrugs and they both move to stand.

“Hey,” Beth says, catching Lance’s attention as they both move to their knees to stand up properly. “Stay still a second.”

Lance frowns, but does so. “Okay…? Why-”

He’s cut off by Beth leaning forward, and lightly pressing her lips to Lance’s.

The kiss is brief, and chaste, but when she pulls away, Lance follows her with awe filled eyes.

She smirks down at him as she finishes standing. “I figured I kinda owed you one.”

The door opens moments later, but Lance doesn’t stop beaming the entire night.

For his first ever party, Lance thinks this was pretty fun.

Tori seems upset the rest of the night, but Lance can’t get her to say what’s wrong. Instead she just frowns, and huffs, and makes snide remarks.

When he gets home, he searches bisexuality, just out of curiosity… but no. The term just doesn’t _feel_ right. The idea of liking based on their gender just seems strange to him, no matter how anyone put it…

For now, he chooses to not label himself.

 

Tori’s weird about it for two weeks, but won’t tell him why.

Eventually she seems to get over whatever it was, and things go back to normal.

It was fun, but Lance decides to wait a bit longer before crashing anymore high school parties.

 

Lance is fourteen when he’s told that he needs to start deciding on schools.

Which of course isn’t a big issue, because Lance already knows where he’ll be going.

Marisol’s previous school, which specialized in water athletics and ocean sciences, had already contacted him, offering him a scholarship. It’s practically a no brainer.

But still, he has to list his top five schools and actually go through the application processes, so Lance figures looking into what else is out there won’t hurt much.

There are normal high schools, of course, and two really good ones right around Varadero (one of which Charlie went to), but there really isn’t much point to them when you know what field you want to go into to.

Still, Lance figures that he’ll probably list one of the ones around the area as his second choice, just so he had the option of going to school with Tori.

He looks up schools of cosmetology, schools of dance, of music, of theater, of other athletics, and while some sound interesting, none of them seem to fit just right. Not like the school of Ocean Sciences.

But as the deadline for applications comes closer and closer, Lance can’t help but find himself doubting if it really _is_ the right fit for him.

Because as much as he loves surfing, and swimming, and the ocean-

“Oh, look at him, he’s following in Mari’s footsteps!”

“Just like his sister!”

“Pay attention to what your sister says honey, remember she’s been through this before.”

It’s not new, and it’s usually only mildly grating, but it’s also starting to become legitimately disheartening. Because now Lance is faced with the very permanent prospect of staying forever trapped in Marisol’s shadow. He loves his sister, he really does. And he loves surfing, and the ocean. But at the same time, he can’t help but feel like he’s being made to follow someone _else’s_ path. A path that has big shoes to fill. And even if he ever _did_ fill them, they’d still never be _his_. He’d always feel like an intruder, like the remake, never the original.

He just wants something that’s _his_.

That’s why he gives it any thought at all when one day, Mr.Brigg’s says, “Oh Lance, are you planning on listing the Garrison as one of your school choices?”

Lance stares back at his teacher blankly. “Um, sorry… what?”

“The Galaxy Garrison,” Mr. Brigg’s clarifies. “I know you want to take a marine path, but since you love the class so much, I was wondering if it would be on your list.”

The Galaxy Garrison.

Right, of course.

He knows about it, of course he does. But he has never really even stopped to _consider_ it before now.

Maybe because it’s so far away, all the way in America technically. Or because, like he has said, he’d given up on any fantasies of being an astronaut years and years ago.

But- huh. Now that he thinks about it, maybe he could list the Garrison? As like a third or fourth choice?

“I doubt I’d get in,” Lance says. “I mean… don’t you have to have crazy good grades, and- I don’t know- be into some kind of space thing already?”

Brigg’s shakes his head. “Garrison’s got high standards, but they’re technically a military branch. They take a lot of people. Besides,” his teacher smiles up at him, “from where I’m standing, you seem like a damned good student to me.”

Lance can’t help but smile a bit tentatively at that.

He looks into it. If for no other reason than curiosity. He likes space, he could, in theory, be accepted…why not?

The Galaxy Garrison, as it turns out, is based somewhere in Arizona. Lance looks up where the hell Arizona is, and is a bit frustrated to find that there’s no beach to speak of for miles.

But fine, okay. That’s not an end all be all. Just a minor inconvenience.

(Why he cares so much about a place he has no intention of going, he doesn’t want to examine.)

It also turns out that the Garrison is _very_ military- like _surprisingly_ military.

Which doesn’t mean he couldn’t join or anything, but it is just a bit jarring given his expectations. He has always imagined the garrison as some private school of space nerds that just so happened to be government funded. He hasn’t really ever thought of it as a literal operating branch of the U.S. division of the UN Armed Forces.

Given the unprecedented cooperation between nations in the past few decades, joining another country’s military institution wouldn’t be too difficult. Applying as a foreigner would only require an extra background check, and maybe a small fee for room and board. Hell, in some cases even that would be waived. From what Lance can find there are some kids who join at twelve or thirteen, usually wards of the state, or whatever. The U.N. program, from what Lance could tell, even seems to encourage it.

So it isn’t that the Garrison’s militaristic nature is _limiting_ , just that, well… Lance isn’t really all that fond of the idea. He knows a thing or two about military training, not a lot mind you, but a bit. It’s grueling, and instructors are often relentless. They are based around discipline, attention to detail, and willingness to follow orders. And those are all things that Lance is admittedly… not wonderful at.

The space program doesn’t seem to be _as_ heavy handed from his research, but they are certainly still strict.

Then there is always the thought of combat. What- what would happen if there _is_ ever an international conflict? It hasn’t happened before, but there _is_ a reason primary pilots are called ‘fighter’ class. If anyone ever _does_ put weapons up in orbit, it might be Lance getting sent out to handle it.

Would he even be okay with putting himself in that kind of danger? In taking the risk of never seeing his family again…?

Something reminds him that going into space in general would be taking that risk as well. Anything could go wrong. Things had in the past.

But, he reminds that voice, that that was a long time ago, and incidents like that are incredibly rare nowadays. Not to mention, he could just as easily die out in the ocean.

He then has to stop again, and wonder why he’s focusing so much energy on justifying a career path he doesn’t even plan on _taking_.

 _It’d just be kind of nice to be able to say I got in_ , Lance tells himself.

He slams the laptop shut.

He’ll deal with thinking about this later.

 

Except it doesn’t ever really seem to go _away_. Every time Lance looks up at the sky at night he’s reminded of the Garrison, of the possibility. Every time he stares up at his ceiling, where a few, lone, glow in the dark stars remain. Every time he sees the telescope in his room that now mostly acts as a clothes rack. It’s always on his mind.

He’s with his brother one night, they’re outside, helping care for their tio’s garden (something they no longer did quite as often, now that Tio Mannie was officially fully recovered, but still tried to make time for when they could), when Charlie brings up the topic of schools.

“When do they open applications again?” Charlie asks, out of the blue as he’s pulling up a weed from the petunias. (And how on earth, had his tio managed to get _petunias_ to grow _here_?)

“Huh?” Lance replies blankly, tiny green shovel in hand.

“The high school applications,” Charlie clarifies as he starts shoveling dirt of the new hole.

“Oh,” Lance says, brow creasing. “Um, in the next few weeks?”

Charlie nods. “Yeah, okay. It’s been a while for me; couldn’t remember. Still going with the Ocean Sciences here?”

Lance began patting down the soil around some newly planted Barbados Lilies. “Uh, yeah, I think.”

“You _think_?” Charlie asks, raising a brow.

And Lance pauses at that, his brain taking a moment to catch up with what he’d just said. He almost double takes.

He… _thinks?_ Since when had it not been a definite yes?

“Uh, I mean, right now it’s my first choice, and I should get in and everything, but…”

But what?

Lance knew the answer.

“…but I’ve been thinking about the Galaxy Garrison a bit too.”

His brother just stares at him, eyes wide. Lance shifts uncomfortably.

“The…Garrison?” Charlie finally says. “As in… in America? The space academy or whatever?”

Lance swallows thickly. “Yeah. That one.”

“ _Why?_ ” his brother asks, incredulous. “Lance, you’ve wanted to be a professional surfer since you were what- seven? That’s over half your life, hermano. Why the hell are you suddenly thinking about _space_?”

Lance shrugs, feeling self-conscious. “I don’t know. I mean, I’m not thinking about it super seriously or anything I’m just… keeping my options open, you know?”

Charlie shakes his head, turning back to his digging, the dirt compacting under his fingernails further. “I don’t get it,” he says. “You trained for the School of Ocean Sciences all these years… why even considering throwing that away?”

“It wouldn’t be thrown away!” Lance can’t help but protest.

Charlie’s brow furrows, but he doesn’t say anything.

Finally, when they’re done for the night, and the stars are out, Charlie turns to him again.

“Look, you’re my little brother, and I’m going to support you no matter what,” Charlie begins. “But… you should really think about this. Do you _really_ want to just abandon all that you worked for here? Would it really be worth it?”

Lance knows his brother’s right. Space… space is a curiosity. It’s a question, something that scratches at Lance’s mind. It’s a chance for freedom, for independence. But it’s not a passion. Not like the ocean is. So it should be a straight forward answer, it should be simple, but-

“I don’t know,” Lance admits.

And that’s kind of the long and short of it, isn’t it?

 

The week that applications are released, Lance can’t help but feel like his head is being forced underwater.

Because suddenly, all those things that he couldn’t stop from worming under his skin, feel as if they’re everywhere he turns.

When he gets a B on a homework assignment, and his mother says, “You know, Anna Marie was always so disciplined in school, maybe you can ask her for some advice?”

Or when he mentions that his only plans for a weekend are to hang out with Tori, and his Abuelo says, “You need to put yourself out there more, Lancito! Look at Charlie, he’s a natural charmer. That kind of thing comes in handy later in life.”

Or when he told his father that he doesn’t plan on running for any class office his first year, and his Papa replies, “Marisol ran her freshman year! She probably wouldn’t have won her second year if she hadn’t tried. You should try to follow your sister’s example.”

And it kind of all comes to a nasty head when Lance comes in first in that month’s surfing competition.

He may have won, but it had been a very near thing. He was barely a point above the second place competitor. It certainly wasn’t his best work. But he acknowledges that and intends to work harder this upcoming month, to make sure that no one catches up, when-

“You did good Lance, but you really need to work on your barrels,” his Abuela Elena says. “Why, when she was your age, Mari here could run the length of a barrel no problem! No one could even _dream_ of catching up to her!”

And even as Mari replies, chiding their grandmother softly, Lance can’t help but feel frustrated tears prick at his eyes.

So that’s it, huh? He would just never be able to do enough, never be able to breathe for even a _second_. How smart he is, how social he is, how talented he is, would always come second to how much of something _else_ his siblings are. He’ll always be competing against their shadows.

And Lance- he’s _tired_. He’s tired of this, tired of feeling like this, tired of feeling like he can’t just _be_ , and forge his own path.

That night, when he sits out on the beach, unable to sleep, staring up at the stars, Lance can’t help but wonder-

_Is it so wrong to want something for myself?_

 

It isn’t until he’s sitting in front of the computer, filling out the application, that Lance realizes he’s already made his choice.

He fully intends on listing the School of Ocean Sciences first. He’ll get a scholarship, he’ll be able to surf, he’ll explore the ocean, he’ll-

Forever be walking in the shadow of his older sister.

Lance doesn’t even realize that he’s listed the Galaxy Garrison first, until he goes to review the document. And as soon as his eyes land on that he- freezes. Because everything in him is screaming that he needs to change that, fix it before it’s too late, but- he doesn’t want to.

He just wants a _chance_. He just wants something that’s _his_.

He sends in the application as is.

 

As soon as it’s sent though, Lance can’t help but feel he may have just made a terrible mistake. But… he can’t bring himself to change the submission.

Besides, if he gets in, he can still decline the Garrison and go to the Ocean’s institute.

That’s what he tells himself at least.

He feels weirdly guilty about the whole thing, and maybe that’s why he doesn’t tell anyone about it (he’d seen how Charlie had reacted to even the suggestion; he doesn’t want to know how the rest of his family might take it).

Or maybe he’s feeling guilty _because_ he doesn’t tell anyone…?

It’s a bit of an odd cycle, he thinks.

The end result is still the same though: Lance feels guilty.

But under that, he’s still excited. A bit nauseous, and a bit uncertain, but the very idea of being able to do something so new, so different, something _no one_ in his family has ever done before, is thrilling.

So he isn’t able to keep it entirely to himself.

Three days after the application is sent Lance hangs back after his astronomy class.

“Hey, Mr.Briggs,” Lance calls, strolling up to the front of the classroom. He wishes his smile looked genuine, but he knows better.

“Ah, yes, Lance?” Briggs asks, looking up from his paperwork.

Lance stops in front of the man’s desk, and scratches at the back of his neck, feeling a bit sheepish. “I just uh… I wanted to tell you that I- I thought about what you said. So… I put in for the Garrison.”

Mr.Brigg’s entire expression lit up at that. “Really?” the man asks, eyes bright as he beams. “That’s marvelous news, Lance! I’m very proud of you for giving it a chance.”

Lance smiles back, tentative. “Yeah. I mean, I just figured- why not try, ya know? Do something a bit different. I love astronomy, and I mean… steering a spaceship can’t be that much different from steering a boat right?” he asks with a laugh.

Mr.Briggs is still smiling up at him. “You’ll do wonderfully, Lance, regardless of what you decide.”

And Lance wishes that he wasn’t so transparently preening at the praise- but hey- he’s only human.

 

Anna Marie had technically moved out months ago. She isn’t far. Just a block away.

But Lance would be lying if he said he doesn’t miss her, and Carson, and Gabby being a fixture in their home just a bit.

But at the very least, they are now a permanent presence in his life, and Lance couldn’t be more happy with that. Anna Marie is wonderful- he is finally able to spend time with his oldest sister. Not to mention he loves the heck out of Carson and Gabby. Best and brightest kids in the Caribbean if you ask him.

Best senses of humor too. Lance likes to take credit for that.

Gabby is now two, and Carson’s going on five. It blows his mind just how fast they are growing up.

So Lance likes to take advantage of every moment he could get with them.

Which, luckily enough, is fairly often, since Anna Marie usually brings them with her every time she stops by the house, regulating Lance to babysitter duty. A task that Lance doesn’t mind one bit.

“Up!” Gabby cried, clinging to Lance’s leg, her toy airship in hand. “Up, up, up!”

Lance laughs, “Okay, okay,” he says, scooping up the little girl, and holding her aloft, horizontally. “Ready?” he asks.

“Go!” she cries in delight, and giggles maniacally as Lance pretends to fly her through the air. “Vroom, vroom!”

“Airplanes don’t go vroom!” Carson yells from where he sat with his blocks. “Cars go vroom.”

“Ever been near an airplane?” Lance asks, as he continues to swing his niece around.

Carson frowns. “No,” he says glumly.

“They’re pretty loud,” Lance tells him.

“Whee!” Gabby shouts and Lance lifts her to sit on his shoulder.

“Officer one this is officer two,” Lance says, muffling his voice slightly with his hand over his mouth. “We need to clear for landing, over!”

“Clear! Clear!” Gabby shrieks, holding her toy plane aloft.

“Clear what? Over,” Lance says, smirking behind his hand.

“Over, Over, over!” Gabby says, giggling.

“Over or clear? Over!”

“Vroom! Landing! Over! Over, Over!” Gabby says.

Lance laughs as he pulls her up to swing her around one last time, before slowly, and carefully setting her down on the couch.

Gabby rolls over onto her back immediately, chanting, “Again, again, again!”

Lance plops down beside her. “I don’t know,” he pretends to complain, “I’m pretty tired.”

“Laaaaaa,” she complains. She hasn’t quite gotten the n or c sound down yet.

Lance just smiles, and hauls her down to the ground where Carson is.

“So, is it ready yet?” he asks, excitedly.

“Almost,” Carson says, tongue sticking out of his mouth, looking adorable in his concentration as he set a small, triangular block on top of a tall stack.

Lance watches him with Gabby in his lap, keeping her preoccupied with the odd block and such that Carson didn’t need, making sure that she does not preemptively destroy her brother’s hard work.

“Done!” Carson cries, jumping up as he situates the last block.

Lance brightens at the sight of a crudely built city. “Hey, awesome job, bud! It looks great!”

Carson nods. “I know,” he says.

Lance smiles. “You ready then?”

“Yes!” Carson says, and grabs his Godzilla action figure.

“Here we go then,” Lance says, now swooping up his nephew. “Get ready to come in for a crash landing!” he shouts, and plops Carson directly in the middle of the small city.

Carson lets out a roar, and, with the Godzilla action figure in hand, begins stomping around the building blocks.

Gabby claps, bouncing up and down excitedly as she watches.

Lance picks her back up, staying on his knees this time, and holds her horizontally again, her plane in hand.

“Oh no, Godzilla, the Airforce is coming!” Lance cries, and swings her over her brother’s head. “Pow, pow, pow!”

“Oh noo!” Carson cries. “I’m hit!”

And with no further fanfare, drops back, toppling half of the carefully constructed city in his fall.

Lance laughs, setting Gabby down in the wreck.

He watches fondly as they play by themselves for a moment.

He really, really loves these kids.

It- it hurts sometimes. To look at them. And to see parts of their dad. His nose. His coloring. There’s something uncomfortable that sits in his stomach, to know that these are the kids of a man who had done something so horrible.

But- at the same time, Lance wants to curl up around them and protect them for that very reason. His niece and nephew aren’t defined by their father. And most likely they would struggle because of what he had done. They don’t deserve that.

Lance just hopes and prays Nicholas stays out of their lives for good.

Carson and Gabby deserve the world. And if they ever have a dad again, they deserve one that will love them unconditionally, and won’t betray them.

Until then, Lance and the rest of the family are more than happy to give them some extra stability.

 _If you leave you can’t have this anymore_ , a traitorous voice whispers, and Lance’s expression drops.

He can’t think like that.

So instead, he just rushes back to his niece and nephew, calling out a tickle attack.

He’ll get all the time he can with them.

 

But he can’t ignore it forever.

Two weeks after he sends in the application, he finally breaks.

They’re all gathered around his tia and tio’s table (a table smaller than theirs or his abuelos’, but cozy nonetheless), eating Sunday dinner, when the topic of school comes up, as it usually does.

“How is your last year of middle school going, nieto?” his abuelo asks.

“Pretty good,” Lance says around his mouthful of rice. “None of the work’s too hard or anything. I’m actually going to kind of miss some of the people there.”

“Well you never know,” Tio Mannie says, cutting into the roast pork, “some of them might end up at the same school.”

“Could be,” Lance says weakly, turning his attention back to the fried rice on his plate.

He tries to ignore his stomach churning uncomfortably.

“A lot of kids like to stay in the area,” Abuela Elena chimes in. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you had some of the same people in your class.”

Lance just nods, stuffing his mouth full as quickly as he could.

“The applications were a couple of weeks ago, right?” Anna Marie asks.

She became a regular at their family dinners over the past year or so. Gabby and Carson’s attendance could be a bit spotty though, given that Gabby doesn’t often like to sit for so long. And where Gabby doesn’t go, Carson doesn’t go. However, it’s usually pretty easy for Anna to find someone to babysit for an evening.

“Yeah,” Lance says as he swallows down his food. “Two weeks ago.”

“Good,” his abuela says. “You applied to the School of Ocean Sciences, didn’t you?”

Lance pauses. “Well… yes,” he admits, hesitantly. His abuela smiles, but Lance’s stomach turns.

He tries to convince himself that it isn’t a lie. He did after all apply to the institute. It’s just that-

“But,” Lance says slowly, and he wants to stop himself he really does, but it’s like the words are coming out on their own, forcing their way from where they sat, wriggling and pushing against his stomach, “I didn’t technically put it down as my first choice…”

At that, suddenly all eyes are on him, surprise etched into his family’s faces.

Lance swallows thickly.

“What?” his mother asks.

“Irene, did you know about this?” Abuela Elena demands before his mother has even finished speaking.

“No!” his mother says, and turns to his papa. “Carlos?”

His father shakes his head. “No,” he says, looking troubled as he turns to Lance. “Mijo, why didn’t you tell us this earlier?”

Lance shrugs, staring down at his plate. “I- I don’t even know if I’ll get into my first choice, so… I don’t know.”

Anna Marie’s brow crinkles. “Then… what did you put down as your first choice?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Lance sees Charlie suddenly stiffen next to him, his mouth pulling tight.

Lance tries not to cringe.

Charlie is the only one he’d even mentioned it to…

“I applied for the Galaxy Garrison,” he says, voice small.

His sisters’ eyes widen, and Tia Amelia actually looks up at him, eyes piercing.

His parents’ brows furrow.

“The… what?” his mother asks.

“The Galaxy Garrison,” Lance repeats, trying to keep his voice steady. “It- it’s an aerospace program… In America.”

His grandparents look like they might faint.

His parents and siblings just continue to stare at him, bug eyed.

His Tio Mannie looks vaguely confused, but his tia… his tia looks something close to proud.

Finally his father asks, voice distant, “Why… why go there?”

Lance shrugs, feelings self-conscious. “I just- really like space,” he says. “I just want a chance to- to just try, you know?”

They’re all still staring at him.

“But, Lance,” his mother says, “you’ve loved the ocean since you were young. This is what you always said you wanted to do… why change that now?”

Lance can’t stop himself from playing with his silverware a bit, hitting his knife and fork against one another.

There’s something about the _clang!_ of them hitting together that soothes him a bit, gives him a bit more control of himself.

“That’s kind of why,” he admits. “I know I love swimming and surfing, I know I love the ocean! But… I also really _really_ like space. And I’ve never had the chance to really explore that before.”

His family is silent.

“Please don’t be mad,” he begs quietly, shoulders hunching in on himself.

His parents react immediately:

“Oh no, no, Mijo, we’re not mad we just- we’re surprised,” says his mother.

“We just want to make sure this is what you really want,” his father continues.

Lance gives a weak smile. “Thanks.”

“But,” his abuela says, her brow furrowed, “are you sure you want to go to the Galaxy Garrison, Lancito? It’s far away. And-it’s a very tough school. Incredibly difficult. Getting into programs like that are hard, but staying-”

“He can do it.”

Lance looks up in surprise at his Tia Amelia, who’s still staring at him, even as she addresses her mother.

“Lance is incredibly bright. He can do it,” she says, looking into his eyes.

Lance feels something warm fill his chest, and he can’t help the small, genuine smile that crosses his face.

“Of course,” his abuelo says, nodding. “This has to be your choice, Lancito. We wouldn’t stand in the way of that.”

The rest of the meal is a bit awkward. His family tries to ask him stilted questions about the Garrison, what he’s planning on doing, how far it really is, what courses they offer, what his job would be, etc. It’s really only his Tia Amelia who has any idea what she’s talking about though.

But most of them try to engage in the conversation anyway (and Lance would be lying if he said he doesn’t feel just a _little bit_ validated at the fact that he is getting more attention now, than he ever hads while competing).

That is, except for Marisol, who Lance notices keeps suspiciously quiet the whole time.

It makes something heavy sink to the bottom of his stomach again.

 

He doesn’t know what he expected after that, but it wasn’t- _this_.

Nothing really changes. Nothing that is except for his family, his mother especially, being just a bit _clingier_ than normal. They all seem to try to go out of their way to spend more time with him, invite him along for things like fishing trips, or ask to teach him how to cook, or how to play guitar, or take him out for dinner. It’s all just a bit… weird. Nice. But weird.

All of them, that is, except for Marisol.

His and Mari’s routine stays the same. They meet on certain days to practice surfing, on another to practice swimming, and they see each other at family dinners and on weekends.

Lance isn’t sure what he’d expected- he had thought that his sister might cut off his surfing lessons after his announcements. He thought she might suddenly demand he always be out on the ocean.

But instead it’s like she ignores it altogether. She doesn’t bring it up, and she still drills him like usual. It’s all… normal.

Except, of course, for the fact that she refuses to so much as _mention_ anything about the applications or the Garrison or the School of Ocean Sciences.

The uncomfortable silence of the topic, and his sister’s stand offish attitude make Lance feel uneasy and off balance.

Finally, one day, a week after his confession, Lance blurts out at the end of a practice, “Are you mad at me?”

His sister stops in her tracks. She doesn’t look at him, just staring away from the beach front, her back to her brother.

“No,” she says softly, finally, and leaves it at that.

 

It seems to continue like that. There’s a rather tense undercurrent to almost all his family interactions now, that is, except for his Tia Amelia and Tio Mannie, who both just smile (well his Tio Mannie smiles at least), and act like nothing has changed. Which is nice of them.

All in all though, it just adds to Lance’s stress while he waits for any news from the Garrison.

Torri seems to notice he’s a bit on edge, but hasn’t guessed anything out of the ordinary.

“Calm down,” she says one day when Lance is particularly jittery while sitting at Damion’s, unable to focus his attention on any one particularly awfully dressed tourist (he may or may not have unintentionally insulted a seagull. He isn’t sure). “What’s with you lately anyways, you seem kinda jumpy.”

“Just nervous, I guess,” Lance says, stuffing a garlic knot into his mouth quickly.

“About the applications?” Tori asks with a furrowed brow. “Why?”

“It’s nerve wracking. My nerves are wracked,” he says through his mouthful of bread.

“Sure, but it’s not like you have to worry,” she says. “You’re already a shoe in for the School of Ocean Sciences. They’ve all but given you the actual letter at this point.”

“Yeah,” Lance says swallowing, and immediately turns to his milkshake, “but I haven’t gotten the letter _yet_. So it’s nerve wracking.”

It’s not… a _lie_ exactly.

(Lance tries to ignore the fact that he finds himself thinking that more and more these days.)

She just shakes her head. “Man, I’ve never seen you like this. I never knew that you cared _that_ much.”

“Me neither,” Lance mutters.

 

It takes a month and five days.

A month and five days of wanting to pull his hair out, of checking the mail and online every chance he gets. He feels like he’s going _insane_ , but he pulls through.

Because a month and five days after he sent the application, he gets a letter in the mail, the official seal of the American military on the front.

Lance grabs the envelope, and rushes into the house, not even bothering to close the mail box.

“Lance?” his mother calls as he runs past her, up the stairs.

“Feeling sick,” he calls back quickly.

He’s excited, yes, but he’s also nervous. He doesn’t want an audience for this.

Especially if he’s been rejected.

His hands are shaking as he closes his bedroom door, and leans against it as he stares down at the crisp letter in his hands.

“This is it,” he says to himself as he slowly tears open the top.

 _Dear Mr.Alvarez,_ the letter begins, _we are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted into the Galaxy Garrison program._

Lance feels like his heart stops for a moment, eyes fixated on the word.

_Accepted._

He- he’s been accepted…

He’s actually been accepted!

Lance breaks out into a huge grin, and he can’t stop himself form letting out a whoop of joy.

“Yes!” he cries, jumping in the air, letter held in hand. “Yes, yes, yes, yes, _yes!_ ”

“Lance?” he hears his mother calls from the bottom of the stairs. “What’s going on?”

Lance doesn’t even stop to consider the fact that his mother mostly likely finds it odd that he’s celebrating when he’s supposed to be on the toilet, and tears out of his room and down the stairs.

He comes skidding around the corner, barely waiting for his mother come into view before he’s shouting, “I got in!”

His mother seems a bit taken aback. “Got in to…”

She trails off, realization hitting her the same time that Lance exclaims, “The Galaxy Garrison!”

“Oh, mijo!” his mother cries, her hands coming to her mouth and her eyes watering.

Lance practically flies down the last few steps, and meets his mother’s embrace.

“I’m so proud of you!” she says, squeezing him tightly. “Oh, I’m so so proud of you!”

“I did it!” Lance can’t help but exclaim as he hugs her back, tears pricking at his own eyes. “I really did it!”

He hadn’t ever actually believed he’d be getting that letter; he never really thought it’d be a reality.

He gets swept up in the celebration. His entire family is called over to their house, and they all crowd around the table.

(All except for Marisol, who is busy preparing for an exam the next morning. Lance tries to understand.)

(It still hurts.)

All of Lance’s favorites are made, and the conversation revolves around all the things he now has the chance to do, and how proud they are of him.

And Lance loves it. Every moment of it. This- _this_ is what he has been wanting.

Not necessarily to get into the Garrison (although he’s certainly still thrilled about that), but for his family to just _celebrate_ something he had accomplished, for them to really be _proud_ of him, without thinking of him a some kind of side attachment to Marisol’s, or any of his other siblings’, successes.

(A small part of Lance, the part that is never satisfied, asks, _why couldn’t it have always been like this? Not all the time, but just when I had done something worth being proud of. Why is it only **now**?_ )

(He’s certain he knows the answer.)

The moment that undoubtedly means the most to him is when his Tia Amelia walks up to him, and for the second time ever, places a hand on his shoulder, and meets his eyes, smile small but genuine.

“I knew you could do it,” she says simply.

And it’s so plain and so simple and Lance is so happy, that he can only just barely stop himself from hugging his aunt. Instead he places his hand on top of her, grinning brightly.

“Thank you,” he says, and his voice feels thick with emotion.

Tia Amelia just nods, and Lance lets her hand fall.

He clears his throat, looking away in embarrassment.

He doesn’t need to be going and getting too sentimental now.

He grins back up at his aunt, putting on a bit more of a show this time. “I guess I really am just that awesome,” he says, jokingly.

His tia just inclines her head. “Certainly.”

Lance tries to pretend he doesn’t blush and preen at that.

He gets so caught up in the raucous festivity of it all, that he almost forgets- he still needs to decide if _he’s_ going to accept. If he’s really going to go through with this.

The thought doesn’t occur to him until he steps into bed that night, and he sets the letter down on the nightstand.

And suddenly- it’s _terrifyingly_ real. If he says yes, he will have to leave his family behind, leave the ocean behind, to study to become an astronaut, in _America_.

For a moment he considers backing out, saying that he’ll reject the Garrison’s offer and just stay in Varadero.

But- as he continues to stare up at the last few stars still dimly glowing on his ceiling, finger tapping against the bedspread, he realizes he already made up his mind, the moment he so much as considered the Garrison as a possibility.

He’s going to do this.

And, when Lance wakes up the next morning, he realizes that means something else very important as well- he has to tell Tori.

 

It’s two days after he receives his acceptance that he and Tori are back at Damion’s Pizza Shack.

“Hey,” Lance says, after they’ve managed to find four particularly insultingly dressed tourists, “why don’t we go walk down by Lara shore?”

Tori frowns, taking a slurp of her milkshake. “Why?”

Lance shrugs. “Just to do something different, ya know?”

She rolls her eyes, “Sure.”

They end up talking about school as they walk, finally leaving behind the crowded de Bernardino beach around the time that the applications come up.

“And I still haven’t heard back from Hicacos,” Tori adds.

“Eh, I wouldn’t be too worried about that,” Lance says, kicking at the sand in his path. “Charlie said that the high school takes a bit longer since they deal with a lot of students. They don’t send anything out until they’ve decided on _everyone_.”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s still annoying,” Tori sighs. “So what about you then? From what I heard, some of the specialist schools started sending out acceptance letters. Have you heard anything?”

Lance’s mouth suddenly feels extremely dry. “Well, actually… yeah, I have.”

“Wait, seriously?!” Tori asks, whipping around to stare at him.

Lance gives a sheepish smile. “Yeah. I got accepted into my first choice. I got my letter two days ago.”

Tori smacks his arm, she but can’t stop herself from grinning. “Oh my God, why didn’t you text me?! Lance, that’s fucking awesome! I told you you’d get in.”

Lance’s smile feels a bit forced. “Thanks. And I just wanted to, you know, tell you in person.”

“Well I’m super happy for you, dude!” Tori says, swinging her arm around Lance’s shoulder to muss with his hair.

Lance laughs a bit at that, but the sound is hallow. “Me too. There’s just, uh… one thing.”

Tori pauses, moving away to give Lance some breathing room again. She looks concerned. “What happened? Did they back out on the whole scholarship thing?”

Lance shakes his head quickly. “No, uh, nothing like that. But- I didn’t get a letter from Ocean Sciences.”

Tori frowns, her brows drawing down in confusion. “Wait, but I thought you said-”

“I got into my first choice,” Lance repeats.

Tori stops then, and Lance turns to face her. She looks wary. “Then… what was your first choice?”

Lance swallows thickly, and blurts, “The Galaxy Garrison.”

Tori’s brow crinkles further in confusion. “Huh? The what?”

“The Galaxy Garrison,” Lance says. “It’s an aerospace school… where we learn how to fly spaceships and stuff like that.”

Tori stares at him. “Why?”

Lance laughs, the sound a bit hysterical as he rubs at the back of his neck. “Well, I mean, I’ve wondered that myself, I really didn’t think I’d get in, but I guess I just-”

“No,” Tori says, cutting through his rant. “Why did you _apply?_ You’ve been planning to go to Ocean Science’s for years now, dude, what the hell? Since when have you wanted to be an _astronaut_?”

“Oh,” Lance says, clearing his throat. “I- I mean, I guess I’ve thought about it for a while now? I always liked space, but I figured I wouldn’t be smart enough for that kind of thing. But after talking to my tia and taking that astronomy class, and researching, I kind of wanted to-”

“Where is it?” Tori demands.

Lance opens his mouth, then closes it, glancing away.

“It’s uh- it’s in America.”

And Tori- Tori is suddenly furious.

“What the hell, Lance!” she cries, taking a step toward him, hands curling into fists. “You can’t seriously be considering this. You’re going to leave behind everything you’ve ever worked for, everything you’ve ever _known_ , Varadero, Cuba, your family, me! So you can-what? Go off gallivanting in space?”

Lance takes a surprised step back, and holds up his hands. “Hey, I’m sad about leaving too. I know it’s far away but- I won’t be gone forever! And besides,” he bites his bottom lip, and then continues, quieter, “-besides, I’ve already accepted.”

And Tori seems to falter at that, for just a moment, before her face seems to go _red_ , flushing from her cheeks to her ears, and, even worse, her eyes begin to water. “I can’t _believe_ you!” she yells. “We said we were sticking together, and then you go and pull some shit like this?” She steps closer to him, frustrated tears overflowing. “You _promised_ , you asshole! Here I’ve been thinking you were sticking to that this whole time, and then it turns out you were keeping _this bullshit_ from me? That you’re _leaving?_ To shoot yourself off into space in America? Did you even stop to think about how any of _us_ might feel about that?” She demands, and with one last step forward, shoves him, causing Lance to topple back into the sand.

Lance lands flat on his bottom, and stares up at her, eyes wide.

“You know something, Lance Alvarez?” Tori says, seething, even as tears stream down her face. “You’re a selfish prick! And you always have been! I hope you enjoy your fancy new space school, asshole!” she spits, then turns from Lance, and _sprints_ away from him.

Lance doesn’t call after her. Instead he just sits up, and curls his arms around his knees, trying to ignore the stares of the few people who linger about Lara.

Yeah. That’d gone about as well as he expected.

It doesn’t stop it from hurting.

 

The next few weeks are… well they aren’t strained, necessarily. It isn’t even as awkward as before he had received his acceptance letter. It’s like all the tension that had been built up in those few weeks had been released. Which is a relief, but it also leaves them all with the sad acceptance of Lance’s inevitable departure. And it just feels… uncomfortable.

It doesn’t really hit him until a week after his acceptance, when he walks past his Abuela Elena and his mother sitting in the family room, chatting softly as they knit together.

It’s not like it’s abnormal or anything, his abuela often comes by and just speaks with his mother, or cooks, or knits, or crochets, or, on one particular occasion, had tried to teach them metal work.

(“I worked in a shop when I was your age,” she had said to Mari at the time. “Not what I wanted to do for a living, but money was money, and I had some fun. I still have the knowledge, and the callouses.”)

Knitting, in particular, is a pretty normal activity. His grandmother is adamant that his mother can be wonderful at it if she put in the time.

(“You’re wonderful with your hands, mija, you have to be to do all the fancy cuts in your shop!” she’d say. “This should be a breeze after that.”)

But his mother had never really taken to it. She could produce a few decent scarves and blankets, but the second it turned to things more complicated, it got a bit out of hand. The beanies aren’t awful, just a bit lopsided. The sweaters are wearable. Technically. Even if they have to stretch the head hole and one sleeve i quite tight, while the other hangs two inches short. The gloves though- the gloves are hopeless. Fingers completely deformed, too long, too short, too- something. Lance really doesn’t even know what.

He still remembers his mother setting them down on the dinner table one day (she had been late, working to finish Abuela Elena’s project), looking quite distraught.

Lance would like to say that he hadn’t laughed.

He did.

But to be fair- so did everyone else, except his father and his abuela.

“You’ll get there, mija, you’ll get there,” his grandmother would say patiently.

“Mama, I really don’t think this is for me,” his mother would reply good naturedly.

“Nonsense, nonsense. Just try again.”

Lance has only ever paid any attention to it out of mild amusement (it is a rather odd past time after all. They rarely have use for woolen things, seeing as they rarely ever have a true winter), but something about it makes him slow and stop and watch this time.

He watches them work, his abuela with ease and confidence, and his mother with her brow furrowed in concentration, all the while talking easily with one another. And he can’t stop himself from thinking- _I’m not going to get to see this anymore._

He won’t get to see it if his mama ever manages knit a wearable pair of gloves. He won’t be able to see it if his grandmother tries to teach them metal work again. He won’t see it, because he won’t be here.

And it hits him- he’s leaving this. He’s really leaving his family behind here. And everything that means with it.

Something yawning, a type of chasm, seems to rip itself open in his chest. It feels like it’s been pulling for a while. Lance has to stop himself from gasping with the pain of it.

He wants, so badly, to keep this moment forever.

“Lance?” his mother’s voice breaks through his thoughts. She must have just noticed him standing there. “Is everything alright, mijo?”

Lance nods carefully.

“Did you need something?” she presses.

“No,” Lance says, and his voice isn’t as shaky as he thought it’d be.

He doesn’t fully know what possess him to walk into the family room, and sit down across from them on the couch.

“I was just,” he pauses, wondering what he’s wanting to say. It comes to him pretty easily. “I was just wondering if you guys could teach me about knitting.”

It’s… an odd thing for him to ask. He knows that. This is the type of thing he’d usually try to get _out of_.

But he would be leaving soon. And there is no denying that. He refuses to back out.

He can’t pull the chasm in his chest back together. It would be there for so long as he knew he would be parted from his family.

But it doesn’t have to be empty. When land split after all, an ocean fills the gaps.

So Lance- Lance would fill that rift with every moment from his family, every bit of their love, their passion, their frustrations, that he could.

What better place to start?

But they both just stare at him.

“I mean, you’ve already taught me a lot about the shop, Mama” Lance says easily. “I figured it was about time I learned a bit from Abuela as well.”

His Abuela Elena breaks out into a huge smile.

“Why of course, Lancito! We’d love to teach you.”

Lance smiles back, ignores the ache, and waits for the flood.

As it turns out, he’s pretty decent at knitting. Much better apparently than his mother was.

Lance is proud to have two full lines done by the time dinner rolls around.

He tries to make it a bit of a ‘thing.’ Doing things, like knitting, with his family whenever he can.

There’s no flood. Instead, Lance finds the water rising, ever so slowly, but surely over the next month.

 

It isn’t just his abuela and mama however, and it isn’t just on his end. Everyone in the family seems to be doing their best to spend more time with him, to ask after his work in school, or ask about his plans. It’s- a lot of attention actually. Lance can’t find it within himself to feel vindicated anymore. Instead, he just takes every moment he can, and cherishes it.

That doesn’t mean the next few weeks aren’t tinged with melancholy though.

He’s never known any place except Varadero.

For the first time he is having to consider what it might be like to live without his family, and it’s… a lot scarier than he’d anticipated. He has to constantly stop thoughts of second guessing himself.

While Lance is soothed by spending more time with his family, his encroaching departure is made more difficult by the two people who seem decidedly uninterested in making up for future lost time.

One is Tori. She hasn’t spoken to him since that day on the beach. Lance has called her, texted her, gone to her house, and even tried to talk to her in school. But nothing. Not even an acknowledgment.

It stings.

Worse however, is Marisol. She doesn’t ignore him by any means, and she still congratulates him on his acceptance. But he feels like she’s been more distant lately. More standoffish.

It all makes Lance feel as if he’s drifting out at sea, lost. The one support system he’s actually _used to_ is suddenly gone.

Lance doesn’t know what to do without the person who taught him how to swim.

The next month goes by fast. Far too fast in Lance’s opinion.

It’s a weird mix of being both lonely and overwhelming, happy and sad, terrifying and exciting.

Apparently, getting into a space program is considered a pretty big deal around town. Something Lance found out only after he had told his astronomy teacher about the Garrison’s acceptance.

But finally, _finally_ , after so long, the month has passed, and Lance has to start packing. It’s difficult, as the Garrison specifically says to bring very little with you. The dorms are kept military style, so few personal belongings are allowed at the beginning of a cadet’s tenure.

Finally though, all that he feels he has to take with him is packed away into a backpack and two duffels. The night before his flight is set to leave, his family has one last dinner together, all around his family dining room table.

They have all his favorites, and Lance has to pretend that tears don’t prick his eyes.

It’s a nice farewell. He hugs all of his family, including his Tia Amelia, that night (she is the one to offer. Lance almost wonders for a moment if the world is ending). He’ll be leaving too early in the morning to tell Carson and Gabrielle goodbye, so he’s sure to hug them extra tight, and promise that he’ll come back and watch _The Bailey School Kids_ with them when he gets back.

And then, only an hour after he climbs into bed, something is waking him up.

“Lance,” he hears.

He opens his eyes blearily to see his sister, Marisol standing over him, her hand on his shoulder.

It’s familiar.

He sits up slowly. “Mari?” he asks, rubbing at his eyes.

“Come on,” she says, jerking her head towards the door. “Let’s go surf.”

He squints up at her. “Mari, I have to be up by five in the morning.”

“You can sleep on the plane,” his sister says easily. “Now come on.”

It feels… weird. Doing this again after Mari had been so distant since his announcement of applying to the Garrison.

But still, Lance grabs his board, throws on his wetsuit, and heads out to the beach with his sister.

When they first get out on the water, they’re mostly silent. They both just sit on their boards, letting the waves jostle them back and forth as they stare up at the stars.

Finally, after a while, Mari asks, “Are you happy?”

Lance is taken aback. “Uh, about the Garrison? Yeah. Yeah, I really am.”

She nods. “Then I’m happy for you.”

Lance waits for the conversation to continue, but it falls back into a lull. This time, he’s less content to stare up at the stars. He jostles his leg back and forth, shaking the whole board.

Mari sighs, finally looking away from the sky, and turning her gaze to her board. “You were always good enough you know.”

Lance looks up at her in surprise.

“You never needed to beat me, or Charlie, or Anna Marie, or-anyone. You were always good enough,” she says, and this time she looks back at Lance. “I know… I know everyone always compares you to us… especially to me,” she glances away at that. “We’ve always had similar interests and talents, so… I know there’s always this pressure to compare. But Lance,” she turns back to him, “you’ve _always_ been incredibly talented in your own right.”

Lance feels something in his throat grow thick.

“I was just always so happy that I had something to connect me to you, something that we shared, that I.. I didn’t consider whether or not it _really_ made you happy.”

“It did,” Lance says softly.

His sister smiles slightly, but it’s tinged with bitterness. “I’m glad. But I still should have said it more. Still should have fought for you harder… I was upset when you told us about the Garrison. Not just because it meant you’d be leaving us, but because I felt like I’d driven you away.”

Lance’s eyes widen at that.

“But I’m glad that you’re happy with the Garrison,” she says.

Lance swallows thickly, and nods. “I-I love swimming, and surfing, and _this_. But- I just, I always felt like I was stuck in your shadow.” He gives her a sad smile. “You cast a pretty long one, sis.”

Mari shakes her head. “You’ve always been far more talented than me, Lance. Far more talented, dedicated, funny… You deserved your success. It was all you, kiddo.”

Lance can’t help but smile at that. “Well that’s not _entirely_ true, but…Thanks, Mari.”

His sister smiles back, and then turns her gaze back to the sky.

“So… up there, huh,” she says.

Lance nods, smile turning wistful. “That’s the plan.”

“America’s far away,” she says softly, voice just barely audible over the waves crashing against the shore.

“Not that far,” Lance jokes. “I could probably swim it.”

His sister smiles a bit at that.

But then she says, “Space travel is dangerous.”

“So is the ocean,” Lance reminds her.

“Yeah,” she says.

Another pause.

Lance says, “I’m going to miss home… you know that right? I’m excited but I’m also… I’m kind of terrified.” He looks back to his sister. “What if I can’t make it?”

Marisol shakes her head. “Nah, you’ve got this. If there’s one thing I know, hermanito, it’s that _you_ can do anything you set your mind to.”

Her hand goes to her neck. “And we’ll miss you too,” she says, and this time, it’s her voice that sounds shaky. “Home… home won’t be the same without you. But you’ve got to do what’s right for you. And we’ll still be here when you get back, welcoming you with open arms, and cheering you on.”

Lance smiles at that.

They spend a while yet out at sea, just drifting, talking. Lance has missed this.

It’s nice to have it back.

Even if just for a night.

It’s worth the crick in his neck he’ll undoubtedly have after sleeping on the plane tomorrow from exhaustion.

When they finally head inside however, Mari stops him at the beach front.

“Here,” she says, grabbing his hand.

Lance is surprised when she pushes something into his palm.

He opens his fist to see that he’s holding his sister’s necklace, the six pence cool to the touch.

Lance looks up in surprise. “But… I’m leaving tomorrow?”

She nods, pushing it towards Lance’s chest. “I know. I figured you could use it more than me. Just take care of it.”

Lance stares at her, eyes wide.

For the first time, he realizes that they’re almost the same height.

Lance throws his arms around her, the charm clutched tightly in his fist.

“I’ll keep it safe for you,” he says.

It means the world to him.

 

The next morning is early, and miserable, but his parents, Charlie, and Mari all see him off. It’s a sad departure, and Lance finds himself clinging to his mother. But he promises to write, to call them often, and to come back every chance he has (even if he has to swim, he jokes).

Eventually though, there can be no more goodbyes.

Instead, as he’s walking onto the plane, he lifts the good luck charm from under his shift, briefly, flashing it in front of him, just long enough for Marisol to see it.

His sister smiles.

When he’s on the plane, Lance can’t help but feel the tears come unbidden to his eyes.

But- he doesn’t regret this choice. Not in the least.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lance was much harder to write for some reason. Which is weird. His type of character is usually the most natural for me. 
> 
> Much like before, this is just a way for me to get my head canons for the character out. So yes, 1) I do head canon Lance as pan. 2) I do head canon Lance as having grown up in Cuba. 3) I created these characters based off the picture we had seen of Lance's family, but I don't claim that this is necessarily 100% right. 4) I do head canon Lance as the youngest here. 5) The sister's name is not pronounced Mary-sol, but Mah-dee-sole. 6) Charlie is nick named Tres, because his father is named Carlos, and his father is named Charles. 7) Tori is Afro-Latinx. 8) I am not 100% sure if I can do ADHD justice, so if anyone has some feedback, I'd be more than willing to hear it. 9) It is implied that high schools work much like high schools in European countries: There are different schools or programs for specialized tracks, with the military being offered as a possible track as well. 
> 
> As a side note: Keep in mind that this story is not meant to say how good or bad a person's upbringing was compared to another. Instead, it's meant to compare and contrast their histories. That includes their struggles, their successes, their support systems, etc. Both character's problems are real, and valid, as are their feelings within the story. One person having a 'worse' problem, does not negate the problems of someone else. 
> 
> This story was originally supposed to be three or four parts, on each person side, with this just being the first third. But... this took four months, and I am a bit tired. So we'll see if I ever add to this as a series or something. For the time being, I'm done. 
> 
> If you have any questions please let me know, and I'd be happy to answer them! Constructive Criticism is always welcome.


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